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FOUR ESSENTIALS 
OF EDUCATION 





BY we 
THOMAS JESSE JONES 


EDUCATIONAL DIRECTOR, PHELPS-STOKES FUND 


PREFACE BY 

FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS 

PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AND THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION 
OLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 


INTRODUCTION BY 
SIR MICHAEL E 


. SADLER 
MASTER OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, OXFORD 


NEW YORK 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
CHICAGO 
ATLANTA 


BOSTON 
SAN FRANCISCO 


CopyricnutT, 1926, By 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 





Printed in the United States of America 





TO 
GEORGE FOSTER PEABODY 


WHOSE DEVOTION TO HUMAN WELFARE HAS BEEN 
AN INSPIRATION TO SERVICE AND TO THE 
PREPARATION OF THIS BOOK 


Mf 


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na 
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A) 


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vi x) fae Se oe 
aut ene 
; Me Dat af 





PREFACE 


In the last fifty years the problems of edu- 
cation have received more attention than was 
given to them in any one thousand years of 
preceding historical time. The questions: 
What is education? What is education for ? 
and How should education be conducted ? 
have been fiercely fought over, and agree- 
ment has not yet been reached. We need a 
commanding voice, speaking words of fact 
and wisdom. | 

It may be doubted if in any generation a 
man has lived whose opportunities for seeing 
educational problems concretely and in the 
large have equalled those that the author of 
this book, Doctor Thomas Jesse Jones, has 
enjoyed. 

Doctor Jones was born in Wales and in 
childhood came with his parents to America. 
The ambition to get an education awoke in 
him early. Circumstances were not alto- 


Le) 


PREFACE 


gether propitious, but determination carried 
him through. After being graduated from 
Marietta College he entered upon professional 
and graduate study at the Union Theological 
Seminary and at Columbia University. From 
the Theological Seminary he obtained the de- 
gree of Bachelor of Divinity. At Columbia 
University he won a Fellowship in Sociology 
and obtained the degree of Doctor of Philos- 
ophy. Then as head worker of the University 
Settlement he observed the lives of immigrant 
peoples waging the struggle for existence in 
congested areas of New York City. From this 
opportunity he went to Hampton Institute 
as Director of Research and Professor of 
Sociology and History. There he became 
deeply interested in the educational aspects 
of race relations and acquired such under- 
standing of them that the Federal Census ap- 
propriated him to take charge of the division 
responsible for racial statistics. When the 
task there assigned was completed Doctor 
Jones took charge of like work in the National 
Bureau of Education. Equipped with experi- 


[ vi ] 


PREFACE 


ence and with technical knowledge, he con- 
ducted a survey of education in our Southern 
States and prepared a report in two large 
volumes which was immediately recognized as 
an invaluable and authoritative statement of 
fact-findings. 

The Phelps-Stokes Fund, having now ob- 
tained his services and secured the co-opera- 
tion of the British Government, put Doctor 
Jones in charge of expeditions to Africa to 
survey educational and colonial policies. The 
first expedition visited the colonies of the 
West Coast, of the Congo Basin, and of South 
Africa. A second expedition visited the colo- 
nies of the East Coast. Doctor Jones’s re- 
ports of the findings of these surveys are 
unique documents, comprehensive, detailed, 
and cogent. 

Analysis of the observations made in such 
varied and remarkable opportunities sug- 
_ gested and shaped reflections on the essen- 
tials of education for the masses of mankind, 
which are presented in this book. Doctor 
Jones saw these essentials very concretely and 


[ vii ] 


PREFACE 


as comprising much more than the three R’s. 
Four basic ones are: (1) Knowledge and mas- 
tery of hygiene and health; (2) Knowledge 
and mastery of the resources and opportu- 
nities, in particular the agricultural and cli- 
matic ones, of the local physical environment 
from which a community must obtain its 
livelihood; (3) Knowledge and mastery of a 
decent and comfortable domestic life, without 
degradation or exploitation of women or chil- 
dren, on which race vitality and advance- 
ment depend; and (4) Knowledge and mas- 
tery of the art of recreation in a broad mean- 
ing of the word, the art of creating a sane and 
elastic personality, self-controlled and poised, 
serene of mind, and capable of happiness. 
Those who are interested to discover the 
implications and significance of these essen- 
tials of education, which Doctor Jones some- 
times calls ““The Four Simples,”’ must read 
these pages. I do not presume to commend 
them, they sufficiently commend themselves. 
And that their author has long since won his 
public was attested a year ago when “His 


b 


[ vili ] 


PREFACE 


Britannic Majesty’s Government”’ invited 
the most distinguished intellectuals and men 
of affairs of Great Britain to meet Doctor 
Jones at dinner and hear his preliminary re- 
port on the second African survey. So I 
write this introductory word, not because it is 
needed but to express my pride and pleasure 
in the career and achievements of a cherished 
friend and pupil. 
FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS. 


[ix] 


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INTRODUCTION 


Tue reader of this book will find himself 
led by an experienced guide to the heart of 
the problem which now engages the thoughts 
of many of those responsible for the direction 
of educational policy. Doctor Jesse Jones 
writes out of the fulness of an unusual and 
vitalizing experience. He has made a pene- 
trating study of social-conditions in typical 
regions in two continents. He has found that 
everywhere, under the conditions of the mod- 
ern world, education is a function of policy. 
He has observed the miscarriage of much 
educational effort and expenditure. He has 
seen the mischief of misdirected education, 
the pathetic failure of many hopes. 

But what he has seen in the course of ex- 
tensive and privileged inquiries has deepened 
in his mind the conviction that education is 
the chief hope of the human race. It is a 
true instinct, he feels, that turns the thoughts 
of multitudes toward education for the cure 
of wrong and for the attainment of happi- 


[ xi ] 


INTRODUCTION 


ness. In education rightly understood and 
wisely given is the key to welfare. 

What then, he has asked himself, are the 
essentials of an education upon which the 
hopes of humanity may rest)? After obsery- 
ing the work of schools and teachers in many 
lands, he has found his way to a standpoint 
from which his eyes sweep over a very wide 
field of educational experience. Few men of 
our day have a larger view. In this book he 
interprets the significance of a great move- 
ment, in the issues of which each of us is 
inevitably concerned. He seeks by analysis 
to simplify the problem of educational policy 
and to set us thinking about fundamentals. 
Education should prepare for life. And the 
essentials of a choice-worthy life are health 
of body and mind: honest and honorable 
labor for livelihood: communion with God, 
with our family, friends, fellow countrymen 
and fellow men: refreshment and recreation 
as part of the rhythm of living. Of all these 
things, therefore, educational policy must 
take account. Our educational outlook 
should be comprehensive, not narrowly spe- 
cialized. 


[ xii ] 


INTRODUCTION 


To say this is not to disparage the im- 
portance, or to deny the necessity, of study 
concentrated upon methods of teaching, the 
ingredients of courses of education, and the 
specific problems which arise in the govern- 
ance of schools and in the recruitment of the 
teaching profession. All these things—and 
their range is wide—call for specialized in- 
vestigation and debate. Education is an art 
with scientific implications. Like other arts 
of similar character it calls for expert study 
and expert criticism. Doctor Jesse Jones’s 
argument is far from implying any reason 
for discouragement on the part of those of 
us who, on both sides of the Atlantic, be- 
lieve the study of education to be of funda- 
mental importance to the welfare of the 
whole community. 

But the conclusion to which Doctor Jesse 
Jones leads us is that education in its broader 
aspects is a necessary part of modern ad- 
ministration, and that therefore every polit- 
ical or administrative officer should acquaint 
himself with the work which is being done 
or attempted in the schools within his sphere 
of responsibility, and with the main lines of 


[ xiii ] 


INTRODUCTION 


current thought and practice in schools of 
all types. The administrative officer cannot 
under modern conditions afford to leave 
schools unvisited or books on education un- 
read. If he does so, he impairs his efficiency. 
Education as a function of policy enters into 
almost every aspect of the administrator’s 
work. It may promote, or it may retard, 
according to its wisdom or unwisdom, the 
achievement of the purpose which the ad- 
ministrator has at heart. The administra- 
tive officer is therefore constrained to make 
himself acquainted with educational aims 
and methods, and to keep abreast with their 
developments. Schools are not the job alone 
of the Educational Services but of the Ad- 
ministrative or Political Services also. To 
ride or drive past schools on his tours of 
duty without ever looking in and finding out 
what the teachers are aiming at and with 
what success, is to miss things which an alert 
administrator finds it to his advantage and 
profit to know. 

Education is a complex. It is not a walled- 
off section of departmental responsibility. 
The doctor, the public-works officer, the 


[ xiv ] 


INTRODUCTION 


agricultural expert, the engineer are all con- 
cerned in education because education should 
aim at the betterment of the community in 
regard to hygiene, and the competent order- 
ing of the community’s many-sided life. 

This “‘sense of the community” is what 
we all need to develop. Pupils and teachers, 
citizens and officials, alike are the happier 
and the more active-minded by having a 
strong “‘sense of the community.” Doctor 
Jesse Jones emphasizes this and helps us to 
understand what is involved in it. 

By his work in tropical Africa Doctor 
Jesse Jones has earned the gratitude of all 
who realize, however dimly, the pregnant 
significance of Africa to the modern world. 
The reports of the Phelps-Stokes Commis- 
sions, of which he was the chairman and 
leader, have left a deep mark on the minds 
of governments, missionary societies, plant- 
ers, natives, and all who are concerned for 
the welfare of Africa. More than any other 
man, he has given a new turn to British 
administrative policy in regard to African 
native education. He writes and speaks 
with weight and wisdom. 


[ xv | 


INTRODUCTION 


But not to Africa alone do the conclusions 
set forth in this book apply. In all countries 
education will gain by a quickened sense of 
the community. Education aims at height- 
ening the welfare of the community by 
strengthening the will and enlightening the 
ideals of the individual; and, concurrently, 
at giving the individual a better chance by 


improving the community of which he is a 


part. 
M. E. SADLER. 


[ xvi ] 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE, BY FRANKLIN H. Gippines...... #V 


INTRODUCTION, BY Str MicwareL E.SapueR... Xi 
CHAPTER 


I. Epucation anp CoMMUNITY....... 1 


**What Is the School For?” 
Race with Universal Knowledge 
Failure of Accretion Method 


School Aims Defined 
Press Symposium 
“Comparison of Aims from Elementary School 
to University” ‘ 
Aims Unsatisfactory 
Search for Unifying Principle 


Consciousness of Community 
An Educational Attitude 
Not Social Reform 
Necessity Produces Adaptation 
Rural Adaptations 


Elements of the Community 
Essentials of Primitive Society 
Essentials of Civilized Society 


Four Essentials of Education 
Social Organizations and Education 
Social Ideals and Education 


II. Heartru anp SANITATION ........ 


Community and Health 
Curing of Disease 
Prevention of Disease 
Health Basis of Mental and Character Develop- 
ment 


[ xvii ] 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 
Survey of Community Health 
Vital Statistics 
Health Regulations and Sanitary Requirements 
Health and Character Development 
Education and Community Health 
Four Elements of School Organization 
Elementary Schools 
Secondary Schools 
Colleges 


III. ApprecraTION AND UsE oF ENVIRONMENT . 66 
Community and Environment 
How to Make a Living 
*“Who Is My Neighbor ?”’ 
Definition of Community 
Survey of Resources and Popuiation 
Rural Resources 
Urban Resources 
Urban and Rural Population 
Education and Environment 
Four Elements of School Organization 
Elementary Classes 
Secondary Classes 
College Education 


IV. Home anp HousrHotp ......... 94 
Community and Home 
Functions of the Home 
Nurture and Care of Childhood; Develop- 
ment of Individuality; Beginnings of Social 
Exchange 
Conditions Disrupting the Home 
Influences for Home Development 
Home Training and Labor-Saving Machinery 
Government Aid and Regulation 
Home and Other Institutions 
New Status of Women 
Survey of Community Homes and Households 
Education and the Household 


[ xviii ] 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
V. Recreation, Puysicay, INTELLECTUAL, AND 
SSPTR PTE AL Abe RLU a otaku a pei 
Community and Recreations 
Definitions 


Agencies of Recreation 

Home, School, Church, Public Centres, Phil- 
anthropic Organizations, Commercial 
Amusements 

Types of Recreation - 

Physical Culture, Mental Development, 
Character Development, Appreciation of 
Nature, Appreciation of Modern Inven- 
tions, Appreciation of Art, Inspirations of 
Ideals and Religious Faith 


Fundamentals in Community Recreations 
Survey of Community Recreation 


Education and Recreation, Physical, Mental, and 
Spiritual 


INDEX. 


sax 


PAGH 


wih ee 


187 


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ee ory 


fact 5 iN egies 





FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


CHAPTER I 
EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


THE almost amazing multiplication of 
schools throughout the world is strangely 
accompanied by an increasing perplexity as 
to the methods and objectives of education. 
Even the daily press has taken notice of the 
doubts and anxieties and is accordingly send- 
ing out inquiries as to ‘What the school is 
for.” 

Educators and schoolmasters are busily 
organizing administrative machinery and fe- 
verishly adding new subjects and extra de- 
partments. to deal with every variation of 
knowledge and experience of modern times. 
The devotees of classical learning and of the 
good old school-days are protesting vigor- 
ously and almost in despair over the piling 
up of new items of knowledge often unrelated 


ie 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


to each other or to the learner. Governments 
and philanthropy are appropriating educa- 
tional funds with generosity and enthusiasm. 
The people everywhere are clamoring for ed- 
ucation, and sending the youth to schools 
and colleges in number that overcrowd the 
buildings and overtax the staff. There seems 
to be a fatalistic faith in education often fol- 
lowed by disappointment and futility. 

Race with Universal Knowledge.—Educators 
seem to have been enticed into a race with 
modern machinery, and with the results of 
scientific researches. They have uncon- 
sciously accepted the impossible task of 
teaching the youth all the activities and ex- 
periences and knowledges amassed with such 
amazing rapidity in recent years. There are 
the machinery of travel and transportation 
extending acquaintance and control into 
every part of the world; the machinery of 
production multiplying articles of dress, food, 
and habitation; the machinery of amusements 
and recreation for the eyes, for the ears, and 
for the muscles of the multitudes; researches 


[2] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


of earth, air, and water revealing the hidden 
things of the universe, eliminating disease, 
and widening the bounds of human life. 
Human activities are accordingly more varied, 
more numerous, and more confusing as re- 
search, discovery, and invention succeed. 
Knowledge, experience, and achievements 
seem to be increasing by arithmetical pro- 
gression and sometimes even by geometrical 
progression. 

Failure of Accretion Method.—In such a 
race the educators can expect only failure. 
Their present method of adding new sub- 
jects and departments is at best only accre- 
tion. They can never hope to attain the 
speed of arithmetical progression, much less 
of the geometrical rate. Even the method 
of accretion is rushing them into hopeless 
confusion. “What is the school for?’’ is 
being asked with increasing insistence and 
frequency. 

What, then, is the way out of the present 
dilemma? The press with homely wisdom 
and great pertinence has asked the previous 


[3] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


question, which sends us back to the first 
principles. Until the question can be an- 
swered simply and yet profoundly, feverish 
racing should stop; complicated systems of 
school administration should be reconsid- 
ered; large building programmes should be 
re-examined. Present financial provision for 
education should in no way be discouraged, 
but educational endowments and appropria- 
tions should be based upon thoroughgoing 
replies to the question: What is the school 
for? 


SCHOOL AIMS DEFINED BY EDUCATORS 


The answers of distinguished educators in 
a recent symposium in the New York Times* 
are interesting, enlightening, and significant. 
Their various points of view are herewith 
presented: 


University President—The greatest edu- 
cational need is to enlist the interest of every 
pupil in every school in his daily tasks in 
order to get from him hard, persistent, and 
enjoyed work. Cultivate every hour in every 

* March 11, 1923. 


[ 4 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


child the power to see and describe accu- 
rately; teach every child to draw, model, sing, 
or play a musical instrument and read music. 
Make every pupil active, not passive; alert, 
not dawdling; led or piloted, not driven; 
always learning the value of co-operative 
discipline. 

Teach groups of subjects together in their 
natural relations. Require universal physi- 
cal training for boys and girls from six to 
eighteen years of age. Make sure that every 
pupil has a fair chance to learn the elements 
of agriculture, dietetics, cooking, and hygiene, 
and that every boy has an opportunity to 
learn the elements of some manual trade, 
and every girl the domestic arts. Instruction 
in hygiene should include the defenses of so- 
ciety against the diseases and degradations 
consequent upon ignorance, moral depravity, 
poverty, and vice. Keep the atmosphere of 
every school charged with the master senti- 
ments of love, hope, and duty. Keep out 
fear and selfishness. 


Professor of School Administration.—It is 
the business of the school to prepare chil- 
dren for participation in all those activities 
which make for the common good, to develop 
a sympathetic interest in the work of all 
men, to give them command of the tools of 


[5 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


investigation and inquiry. This means the 
teaching of reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
as well as fundamental courses in science. — 
They should also have the appreciation 
that comes only through participation in the 
fundamental arts upon which civilization is 
built. More fundamental than reading and 
arithmetic are the courses in the shop or 
laboratory in which children become ac- 
quainted with industrial processes or gain 
skill in homemaking. Music and fine art 
antedate the three R’s. He is a poorly edu- 
cated man who lacks in appreciation of the 


beautiful. 


Principal of a Private Secondary School.— 
What our country needs to-day more than 
anything else is not better artisans, me- 
chanics, bookkeepers, and business men, but 
better and more intelligent citizens. The 
great problems of to-day, common not only 
to this country but to the world, are chiefly 
human, not economic. ‘These problems are 
to be solved by those who have been trained 
to think straight, and those whose thinking 
will be guided and clarified by a knowledge of 
the successes and failures of the human mind 
as it has faced and wrestled through all the 
ages with various forms of the same human 
problems that challenge and baffle us to-day. 


[ 6 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


Superintendent of City Schools.—Schools 
are for the public benefit and not for the sel- 
fish advantage of children or their families. 
They are to promote union, justice, domestic 
tranquillity, common defense, and general 
welfare.. American public education has had 
a struggle for five generations to shake off 
its European, individualistic, selfish objec- 
tives and to realize the patriotic purposes of 
the fathers. The frills it is cutting out are 
attenuated grammar, oral readings, memo- 
rized geography, mechanized foreign and na- 
tive languages, classics, and such subjects. 
Our greatest need is still to get more of the 
civic and less of the personal motive into the 
hearts of the generation; less appeal to sel- 
fish success and more to service and to sacri- 


fice. 


Historian.—Schools are to teach children 
to think and use their minds in ways bear- 
ing on the real puzzle of their subsequent 
life. We must give them a frame of mind es- 
sentially different from those who now con- 
trol and subsidize education. We must tell 
them the things they should know in order 
that they may use their minds. 

A preliminary to any fundamental educa- 
tional reform must be the humanizing of | 
knowledge so as to make it really a vital 


Ta 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


thing in life. At present we have depart- 
ments, subjects, and sciences in which hu- 
man knowledge is torn into grotesque frag- 
ments. Gradually we must learn that our 
present classification of knowledge into his- 
tory, political economy, government, ethics, 
psychology, chemistry, physics, and biology, 
is wholly inappropriate for educational pur- 
poses. This resynthesizing of knowledge is a 
very difficult task and will necessarily take 
a good deal of time and much ingenuity. 


These answers present ideals that are su- 
perior to most current educational practice. 
All agree in their recommendation of civic 
service as probably the most important aim. 
All but one direct their instruction and train- 
ing to the needs of the individual. Three 
stress the necessity of teaching to think, and 
to think in relation to historical and present 
experience. One is especially emphatic in 
his insistence on the training of the senses. 
Two urge the value of manual practice and 
the doing of tasks under real conditions. 

The typical and significant character of 
the answers in this symposium has recently 


[8] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


been strikingly confirmed in an able article 
entitled “A Comparison of Aims from Ele- 
mentary School to University,’ based upon 
a careful analysis of 112 books and articles 
by leading American educators.* The article 
discusses only the twenty-four aims that 
have been recommended five times or more 
for at least one of the four educational units, 
namely, the elementary school, the secondary 
school, the college of liberal arts, or the uni- 
versity. The author summarizes the twenty- 
four aims in the following statement: 


The first two aims, (a) general or liberal 
training, and (b) preparation for the needs 
of life, may be regarded as comprehensive 
aims, whose real meaning is made clear in 
the eight aims following. These eight can 
be simmered down to four large aims, viz.: 
(1) training for social-civic responsibilities; 
(2) health; (3) recreational and esthetic par- 
ticipation; and (4) practical and occupational 
efficiency. Aims number 11 and 12 are “in- 
tellectual training’’ and “mental discipline.” 
Most of the remaining twelve aims are to be 
looked upon as functions, goals, or conditions 

*Leonard V. Koos, in the Educational Review, April, 1925. 


[ 9 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


to be attained in order to facilitate the 
achievement of the aims. 


Aims Unsatisfactory—Both The Times 
symposium and Professor Koos’s comparison 
of aims undoubtedly stimulate thought in 
helpful directions. They disturb the com- 
placency of conventional schoolmen as well 
as the “educational efficiency”’ of the fever- 
ish seeker for new things. The earnest, dis- 
cerning inquirer, however, is still puzzled by 
the unrelatedness of the aims. He resents the 
dogmatism of the advice. He wants to know 
the reason for the faith which is to guide him. 
He feels that these aims are pointing toward 
the light, but they are not the light. » 

Perplexity of Parents and Educators—The 
anxious parent and the perplexed educator 
now have some idea of the numerous discon- — 
nected elements essential to sound education, 
but they are seriously at a loss to make the 
selections and combinations best suited to 
the child. They are like the novice in chem- 
istry who sees the atomic ingredients nicely 

[ 10 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


arranged on the shelf but is reasonably cer- 
tain that if he attempts to combine them he 
may as likely concoct an explosive mixture 
as compound a healthful medicine. We now 
know ‘what the school is for,’ but the ob- 
jectives are so numerous and diverse as to 
- dazzle and confuse the teacher and the school 
administrator who must practise what has 
been so learnedly preached. 

Search for Unifying Principle—Our in- 
quiry therefore points to the need for an ap- 
proach to education that is sufficiently funda- 
mental to be accurate and sufficiently simple to 
be practical. What shall be the basis for the 
synthesis of the “grotesque fragments of 
- knowledge’? What shall be the guide and 
determinant for humanizing knowledge and 
for the selection and the development of the 
mental and character traits required in the 
individual) Psychological researches have 
made notable contributions to the apprecia- 
tion of mental capacities and _ processes. 
School administration has formulated elab- 
orate organizations and machinery for school 

(Ee) 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


management. Remarkable progress has been 
made in school methods during the past few 
years. Full credit must be given to those 
who have ably labored, both in research and 
practice, to improve school activities. It is 
probable, however, that the present difficul- 
ties are partly, if not largely, due to the fact 
that the educators are depending too exclu- 
sively upon psychology and administration 
for guidance in their problems. It is probable, 
too, that the specialists in psychology and 
administration, encouraged by successes in 
their respective fields, believe that they have. 
the solution for all educational problems. 
With genuine appreciation for their achieve- 
ments, it is obvious that their knowledge and 
skill apply only to special phases of educa- 
tion. As the scientific hygienists are increas- 
ingly realizing that the conquest of disease 
cannot be accomplished by diagnosis limited 
to the individual and by hospitals concerned 
only with cases, so educators must un- 
derstand that psychology and administra- 
tion have distinct limitations of service in 
[ 12 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


the determination of school methods and 
aims. 


CONSCIOUSNESS OF COMMUNITY 


The key to the synthesis of knowledge for 
educational purposes as well as to the hu- 
manizing of information and training is to 
be found in a vital consciousness of commu- 
nity conditions. The educator must know the 
community with the same thoroughness with 
which he has striven to know the individual. 
In fact, consciousness of the community on the 
part of the educator must be made the basis 
of the approach both to the interpretation 
of the individual and to the arrangement of 
knowledge and training necessary. Thus con- 
sciousness of community becomes the means 
of correlating the diverse needs of innumer- 
able persons and of integrating the ever- 
increasing number of facts discovered by sci- 
entific research and travel. The hopeless 
method of adding new school subjects and 
departments will thus be eliminated. The 
needs of individuals will be understood 

[ 13 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


through those of the community. Multipli- 
cation of school aims, often unrelated and 
even conflicting, will be replaced by educa- 
tional objectives harmonized and humanized 
by a consciousness of the community as a 
whole. 

An Educational Attitude——The purpose of 
this book is to present consciousness of com- 
munity on the part of the teacher as a con- 
trolling educational attitude which should 
color school policies and methods, and de- 
termine school aims. The references in this 
chapter merely introduce the conception. A 
working appreciation of the potentialities of 
the consciousness of community in education 
requires a careful study of all the chapters 
that follow, together with the application 
of the idea in actual service. It should be 
emphatically distinguished from community 
improvement and social reform. Educational 
method and school activities must spring 
from this social consciousness, otherwise ap- 
preciation of neighborhood is a useless ab- 
straction. Deeds and doing must be based 

[ 14 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


upon a knowledge of community, otherwise 
they may soon become merely the discursive 
and divisive multiplication of independent 
efforts. 

Not Social Reform.—Consciousness of the 
community, as a determinant of education, 
is not a subject or an aim to be added to the 
educational process. It is not a course in soci- 
ology or civics, or a neighborhood activity, 
important as these may be in the school pro- 
gramme. It is a comprehensive understand- 
ing of community conditions on the basis of 
which the educator plans the whole educa- 
tional process. It proceeds by the method 
of gradually changing present school work 
rather than by destructive and radical revo- 
lution. It is constructive rather than de- 
structive. It builds on the good of conven- 
tions and customs of the past. Consciousness 
of the community does not overlook the in- 
dividual, but amplifies, enriches, and general- 
izes individual qualities and needs through 
the composite appreciation of groups of in- 
dividuals, as that appreciation is reflected 


[ 15 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


in the general conditions of neighbor- 
hood. 

Necessity Produces Adaptation.—This idea, 
though tremendously needed in the educa- 
tional world to-day, is not new. Such aims 
as ‘‘training for the common good,” “‘social- 
civic responsibility,’ and “preparation for 
life,’ clearly recognize the social responsibil- 
ity of the school. It is surprising, however, 
how superficially and artificially these aims 
have influenced school subjects and activities, 
especially in urban schools. There are a few 
striking examples of socialized education in 
rural America, chiefly in the Middle West, 
where pioneer conditions have only recently 
ended, and among Negroes in the South, 
where the acute needs of the freedmen re- 
quired an education based both on individual 
and community conditions. These successes 
seem to have been rather more the result of 
the necessities of the situation than a con- 
scious recognition of community needs as de- 
terminants of educational policy. With the 
passing of pioneer conditions, conventional 

[ 16 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


school methods have, in some _ instances, 
replaced the community demands. Even in- 
stitutions like Hampton and Tuskegee, with 
their remarkable heritage of community con- 
sciousness, are in danger of succumbing to 
the pressure of conventional education. 
Rural Adaptations.——The pressing needs of 
rural sections have resulted in several non- 
school educational movements of a decidedly 
social character. The “farm demonstration 
plan,” made possible by the General Educa- 
tion Board of New York City, to combat the 
ravages of the boll-weevil in cotton areas, is 
directly based on community agricultural 
needs. Through the United States Depart- 
ment of Agriculture this movement is now 
nation-wide in influence. The plan has been 
adopted for the improvement of the home and 
other community elements. Unfortunately 
the schools have been rather slow to see the 
significance of the plan in the formulation of 
their policies. Here and there are schools that 
are making a genuine effort to adapt their 
work to community needs. The school-com- 
Pag 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


munity visitation of the Jeanes Fund, An- 
tioch College, Berry School in Georgia, and 
some departments of State Agricultural Col- 
leges, are of this type. 


ELEMENTS OF THE COMMUNITY 


The effective application of consciousness 
of community in education depends largely on 
a practical plan of studying a community. 
It is by no means easy for teachers to become 
aware of their environment. The baffling in- 
tricacies and artificialities of modern society, 
and especially of urban communities, have 
discouraged those who have attempted to 
discover the essential elements of a neigh- 
borhood. Careful observation of people still 
in the tribal stage has shown the great value 
of tribal villages as a laboratory for the de- 
termination of the elemental forces and con- 
ditions of human society. In a sense primi- 
tive society reveals the fundamental social 
forces with somewhat of the purity and sim- 
plicity so eagerly sought by the chemist or 
the physicist in his laboratory experiments 

[ 18 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


with electrons, atoms, and molecules. As the 
physical elements of the mammals have a 
distinct similarity from the lower stages to 
the highest, including man, so the elements 
of primitive society parallel those of the high- 
est communities of Europe and America. It 
appears expedient, therefore, to formulate the 
approach to the study of a community on the 
basis of the elements of a primitive society. 

Essentials of Primitive Society —Of the 
numerous elements susceptible of study even 
in a tribal village, there are four of such vital 
and obvious importance as to merit the rank 
of fundamentals. These four are: (1) health 
and sanitation; (2) appreciation and use of 
the environment; (3) the household and the 
home; and (4) recreation. To avoid the sug- 
gestion of pedantry or mysterious abstrac- 
tion, it seems wise to call these four elements 
the “‘simples” of the community. They are 
the basic essentials of group life, however 
simple or primitive. Reference to succeeding 
chapters shows that they are equally essen- 
tial, in varied forms, to the complex societies 

[ 19 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


of civilization, however advanced. They are 
the foundations and the universals of human 
society. The multiform activities of human- 
ity have always been concerned directly or 
indirectly with these simples or universals. 
Their sequence and interrelations in primi- 
tive society are comparatively obvious, and 
may be outlined as follows: 

1. The community must be hygienically 
habitable. The ravages of diseases must be 
stopped. The normal increase of the popula- 
tion requires sanitary conditions reasonably 
free from the dangers to health. The Panama 
Canal could not be constructed until the 
malarial mosquitoes were eliminated or con- 
trolled. African resources will lie hidden in 
the soil and the mountains so long as sleep- 
ing-sickness and malaria are rampant. 

2. Effective use of the environment in the 
tribal village means the cultivation of the 
soil for food; manual dexterity in the use 
of such materials as wood, clay, and leather 
for habitation and clothing; the conquest of 
neighbors or a friendly alliance with them. 

[ 20 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


3. The decencies and safeties of the home 
are required to insure the rearing and train- 
ing of children and to establish sound rela- 
tions of the sexes. 

4. Healthful recreations are essential to the 
welfare of the tribal community both to dis- 
courage the tendency to various excesses, 
and to direct the amusements and _ tribal 
ceremonies and religions to the strengthen- 
ing of the physique and the character. 

Essentials of Civilized Society —That the 
higher levels of these four essentials or uni- 
versals are equally vital to civilized society 
is shown by the money, energy, and devotion 
expended on each of them throughout the 
civilized world. A brief survey of their appli- 
cation in European and American communi- 
ties is impressive: 

1. The health interests, above those of the 
primitive fight for existence, are concerned 
with the conservation of physical life, to the 
end that the body may have larger capacities, 
that the surplus energy may enable the mind 
to function more accurately in research and 

[ 21 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


in the comprehension of the beautiful and the 
good, and that life extension may continue 
knowledge and experience into old age. 

2. The appreciation of environment in ad- 
vanced society passes beyond the struggle 
for food, clothing, habitation, and the con- 
quest of neighbors to the scientific under- 
standing of natural forces, to the artistic ap- 
preciation of nature, and to co-operative 
relations with humanity of whatever color or 
country. 

3. The household and the home in civili- 
zation are not concerned only with infant 
mortality and with sex relations. They are 
the centres for the development of mental 
traits and character based upon family quali- 
ties and interests. They are the conservers 
of individuality necessary to the varied use 
of natural resources and to the diverse skills 
required in society. 

4. The recreations and culture of civilized 
communities include the full sweep of hu- 
man interests from the physical to the intel- 
lectual and the spiritual. 

[ 22 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


THE FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


Synthesis of School Objectives through Com- 
munity Essentials or Simples.—These, then, 
are the four essential elements of community, 
the four “simples”? or “universals,’’ which 
are to guide the educator in the study of so- 
ciety and to enable him to become conscious 
of community conditions and needs. Con- 
sciousness of community thus becomes a vital 
appreciation of health needs and possibilities, 
of environment with its material and human 
wealth, of the joys and responsibilities of the 
home and the household, and of the recrea- 
tions needed to correct individual and social 
warps, and to give life and life more abun- 
dantly. With such a consciousness the edu- 
cator will be able to classify and simplify the 
confusing multiplicity of school subjects and 
activities by a new synthesis of knowledge 
and of trainings, and so to adjust his teach- 
ing, his discipline, and his administrative re- 
sponsibilities as to realize the objectives of 
education. 


[ 23 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


The purpose of succeeding chapters is 
therefore, first, to define each of the four 
simples or essentials of the community; sec- 
ond, to suggest forms of inquiry to ascertain 
the varied expressions of each essential as 
well as the organizations concerned in each; 
third, to show the relation of each essential 
to the educational processes of elementary, 
secondary, collegiate, and university educa- 
tion. The interrelations of these community 
elements are real and numerous. Each con- 
tributes, directly or indirectly, to physical 
culture, to mental and moral development, 
to artistic and spiritual appreciations, to a 
spirit of service. 

Social Organizations and Education.—So- 
cial organizations, whether governmental, 
economic, or cultural, are dependent for their 
ultimate success on the extent of their con- 
tributions to the essentials of community. 
Governments, originally concerned only in 
the maintenance of order, the collection of 
taxes, and the prosecution of war, are now 
increasing their interests to include health, 
conservation of country and people, home 

[ 24 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


life, and recreation in the comprehensive 
sense. Organizations of labor and of capital, 
primarily concerned in financial gain, shorter 
hours, and material advantages, will be per- 
manently successful only as they base their 
policies on the general welfare of the com- 
munity. Cultural or re-creational institutions, 
including churches, schools, theatres, and art- 
galleries, will be effectively educational and 
inspirational only as their appeals and influ- 
ences idealize and spiritualize the simple es- 
sentials of community life. Social organiza- 
tions, thus conceived, assist in the synthesis 
of human activities. The intimate relations 
of their functions to the simples or essentials 
of community make it possible to integrate 
them with educational processes. Conscious- 
ness of community may thus include an un- 
derstanding of government, economic under- 
takings, and cultural movements as a means 
of simplifying education rather than of add- 
ing to its perplexity. 

Social Ideals and Education.—The relating 
of social ideals and standards of character to 
the actual experiences of life insures the real- 

[ 25 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


ity of such abstractions. The ideals of democ- 
racy, social service, or religious faith in their 
abstract forms may be merely elusive and 
futile emotion. Founded upon a conscious- 
ness of community, they become directive 
and controlling convictions that impel action 
and guarantee the common good. The sur- 
vey of the community must, therefore, seek 
to understand the relation of these control- 
ling concepts to each of the four elements of 
neighborhood. To what extent do the ideals 
of democracy, social service, and religion 
function for health, for an appreciation of the 
material and human environment, for whole- 
some home life, and for the re-creations of 
human society? Do these ideals vitalize gov- 
ernments, schools, churches, homes, labor, 
capital, art, and play? The answers to such 
inquiries, properly interpreted, should syn-— 
thesize and humanize the diverse and almost 
innumerable activities of individuals and so- 
ciety into a living consciousness of com- 
munity. 

With such a consciousness, the merely fac- 

[ 26 ] 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY 


tual contribution of education will be subor- 
dinated to such creative powers as are re- 
quired by the community. Character devel- 
opment will be the coloring of every educa- 
tional activity. Hygiene and health will be 
emphasized, whether in the three R’s or in 
the care of the dormitory. Agricultural and 
industrial skill will be extolled in the class- 
room as well as practised in the field and in 
the shop. The essentials of the home will be 
explained both in reading-lessons and in the 
relations of family life; and the spiritual 
values of recreation will appear in discussion 
and in play. Similarly the higher levels of 
collegiate and university education will be 
rooted in a real regard for character, health, 
agriculture, industry, the home, and play, as 
well as in the historical and scientific appre- 
ciation of government, economic undertak- 
ings, and cultural movements. Education 
will thus be identical with life. It will have 
the same elemental simplicity and reality, 
and also the inextricable interdependence of 
the elements that constitute life. 


[ 27 ] 


CHAPTER II 
HEALTH AND SANITATION 


HEALTH is too generally regarded merely 
as one of the important incidental responsi- 
bilities of the school, a means to an end, a 
necessary provision in the process of acquir- 
ing knowledge. Sometimes it is entirely 
neglected in the educational programme; 
sometimes it is an important incident; some- 
times it is considered one of the vital ele- 
ments of general education, the omission of 
which would render education inadequate. 

Knowledge of the community reveals 
health as a primary essential both of the 
individual and of society. The curing of 
disease is necessary; the prevention of ill- 
ness is good sense; the cultivation of health 
is statesmanship. Social stratification is 
probably more completely dependent on 
health than on any other factor. Individuals, 
communities, races, and nations will, on the 

[ 28 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


long view, be classified according to their 
healthfulness. The population death-rate of 
nations is an impressive “‘social register” of 
general attainments. There is real signifi- 
cance in the comparative death-rates for 
1922: New Zealand, 8.8; United States, 11.8; 
England and Wales, 12.8; Sweden, 12.8; 
France, 17.5; Spain, 20.4; Japan, 22.3; 
Ceylon, 27.8; Chile, 28.4. Many elements 
contribute to these striking variations, such 
as climate, economic conditions, government, 
and intelligence, but there are no elements 
that cannot be influenced, directly or indi- 
rectly, by an education planned with a basic 
regard for physical welfare. 

Health is intimately related to economic 
prosperity, effective mentality, and cultural 
appreciations. Material resources are of 
little value without a population able to work 
energetically. Ordinary processes of thought 
as well as intellectual researches in general 
are directly dependent upon sound bodily 
functions. Artistic achievements in music, 
sculpture, painting, poetry, and other spiri- 

[ 29 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


tual expressions are, as a rule, possible only 
under conditions of health. It is most un- 
fortunate that the consideration of health 
should so frequently be limited to the study 
of disease and ill health. Saint Paul’s exhor- 
tation to bodily care should increasingly be- 
come the basis of our thoughts—‘ Know ye 
not that your body is the temple of the 
Holy Spirit ?”’ 

Such a conception of the physique is worthy 
of a real place at every stage of education 
from the pre-school period to the university. 
It should be the coloring of the curriculum, 
of the administrative activities, and of every 
feature susceptible of health implications. 
Courses in physiology, hygiene, and sanita- 
tion should be regarded only as items in the 
health programme. Athletic organizations 
and physical training are important aids to 
health, but they should not eliminate health 
considerations in the formulation of the gen- 
eral plan of education. Medical schools and 
the preparation of a professional class should 
stimulate the community interest in health; 

[ 30 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


rather than destroy the community sense of 
responsibility for hygiene and sanitation. 
There are numerous dramatic illustrations 
of health campaigns that show both the num- 
ber and magnitude of health activities, as 
well as the remarkable successes possible in 
the prevention of disease. Recent demon- 
strations of great interest are those of the 
Milbank Memorial Fund, directed specifically 
against tuberculosis but really including all 
diseases in a typical American community. 
The following summary presents significant 
phases of the demonstration at Syracuse, 
New York, a city of 180,000 population: 


The local activities have been under the 
supervision of the City Department of Health, 
composed of thirteen bureaus concerned re- 
spectively with administration, health edu- 
cation, laboratories, venereal diseases, school 
inspection, psychiatry, milk and meat in- 
spection, plumbing, communicable diseases, 
health supervision, child hygiene, and indus- 
trial hygiene. Co-operating organizations in- 
clude the Milbank Fund with its Advisory 
Council of distinguished specialists in hygi- 


[ 31 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


ene and health, the State Charities Aid, the 
County Tuberculosis and Public Health As- 
sociation, and the Health Service of the © 
Department of Public Instruction. When the 
occasion requires, the co-operation is widened 
to enlist the help of the Young Women’s 
Christian Association, the American Red 
Cross, the Americanization League, the Boy 
Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, the Catholic 
Youths’ Camp, the Child Health Committee, 
the Girl Scouts, the Jewish Communal Home, 
the Junior League, the Home Bureau, the 
Young Men’s Christian Association, Young 
Men’s Hebrew Association, the County Or- 
phans’ Home, the Visiting Nurse Association, 
and the House of Providence. The Metro- 
politan Life Insurance Company distributed 
special literature, notably a leaflet entitled 
““An Ounce of Prevention.” The American 
Society for the Control of Cancer assisted 
through its district chairman, and the County 
Association’s committee on Education and 
Publicity elected a physician as its chairman 
in order to relate the work of the committee 
to health. 

The enlistment of the co-operation of this 
imposing array of organizations for health is 
itself an achievement of considerable value. 
The definite tasks performed are increasingly 
effective. In 1923 the tuberculosis clinics ex- 


[ 32 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


amined 683 new patients as compared with 
435 in 1922. Since the summer of 1923 more 
than 11,000 Syracuse children have been 
given the Schick test, or have been immunized 
against diphtheria without preliminary test- 
ing. During the year the health staffs have 
been augmented by the appointment of six 
additional nurses, three dental hygienists, and 
one medical inspector. In April and May 
1,848 visits were made to the homes of pa- 
tients. Of the 25,875 public-school children 
examined during the year, 16 per cent were 
found to have goitre. Among the 1,978 high- 
school girls, there were 646 cases, or 32.6 per 
cent. A total of 2,409 pupils is receiving treat- 
ment consisting of organic iodide in small 
doses at regular intervals. 

Important phases of school health work 
are the health clubs, nutrition and open-air 
classes conducted as a part of the demonstra- 
tion programme. In 7 schools there is a total 
of 40 health clubs. The attendance of nutri- 
tion classes, started during the winter, has 
been 150 children; and the open-air classes 
have had enrolment of 123. In all public 
schools undernourished children are encour- 
aged to drink one glass of milk daily during 
the morning session. Free milk is furnished 
by philanthropic citizens to those who are not 
able to buy it. 


[ 33 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


The popular health campaign enlists the 
interest of men, women, and children in the 
conservation of their own personal health. 
An. official demonstration seal has been 
adopted, bearing the slogan: “Syracuse 
Wishes You Well.” A children’s health pa- 
rade was recently staged. Behind the “ Health 
Queen” and her six attendants, “Fresh 
Air,” “Sunshine,” “ Exercise,’’ “‘ Wholesome 
Food,” “* Cleanliness,” and ‘Happiness,’ 
2,000 children marched, led by a health clown 
and his health battalion, a group of boys 
and girls in togas of Turkish towelling, carry- 
ing the “symbols of their order,” basins and 
soap. 


The “Syracuse demonstration”’ thus com- 
bines the financial resources of State, city, and 
philanthropy; the discoveries and skills of 
medical science and sanitation; the good-will 
and influence of all types of social organiza- 
tions; and the popular appeals of parades and 
clowns. 

The health potentialities of such a cam- 
paign are illustrated in the results achieved 
by the recently appointed assistant commis- 
sioner during his ten years’ service in Mil- 

[ 34 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


waukee. In that time appropriations for 
health increased from $126,000 to $461,000, 
or from 31 cents per capita to 94 cents. For 
this expenditure the average length of life 
was extended 3.3 years; infant mortality was 
reduced from 145 to 75; infant welfare sta- 
tions increased from 1 to 19; 93 per cent 
of all milk pasteurized; all dairy cattle tuber- 
culin-tested; tuberculosis clinics multiplied by 
3; an adequate number of sanatoriums; beds 
available for tuberculosis cases, and the death- 
rate from that disease reduced from 89 to 50 
per 100,000; the typhoid death-rate from 8.0 
to 0.8 per 100,000. 

While the Syracuse demonstration and the 
Milwaukee results are rather more striking 
than those in most American cities, a sum- 
mary of health activities, maintained by the 
federal government from Washington, by the 
forty-eight State governments, by the hun- 
dreds of counties, by the numerous cities, 
towns, and villages, and by an unknown num- 
ber of philanthropic and private organiza- 
tions, would be an almost overwhelming evi- 

[ 35 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


dence of the importance of health in public 
opinion.* 

Such a presentation emphasizes the convic- 
tion that education should regard health as an 
integral part of its programme. Why should 
hygiene and health be so exclusively the re- 
sponsibility of an increasing number of organ- 
izations primarily concerned with the curing 
and preventing of diseases? Why should not 
education, broadly conceived, recognize the 
fundamental character of health and formu- 
late its activities with real regard for the 
physical well-being of society? The pro- 
gramme should be positive and constructive. 
Curing of diseases and prevention of illness 
should be important incidents of the pro- 
gramme, but the aim should be health as the 
guarantee of a sound physique, health as an 
essential of a clear mind, and health as a basis 
of character. 

The community and the individual must 


*See, for example, the report on health conditions in 
eighty-six cities, issued by the American Child Health 
Association, New York, 1925. 


[ 36 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


be attuned to the principles essential to 
health. The elimination of insanitary con- 
ditions would be but a beginning of a work 
that will “carry on” until the neighborhood 
has every possible stimulus to physical life. 
The ideal requires individuals with strength 
not only to enjoy the performance of their 
daily tasks but with sufficient reserve to ex- 
plore new possibilities. Minds should be so 
alert to the community forces and conditions 
as to see their relations and to use them 
for the common good. The abundance of 
strength should be sufficient to enable the 
mind to explore, to invent, to deliberate, and 
to appreciate the beautiful and the good. 
Why should poetry and art and music and 
history, and even science have devoted so 
much energy to the presentation of war and 
conflict, of the unusual and the strange, of the 
cruel and the few, of the negative and the ab- 
normal? Is it not possible for education and 
religion and all altruistic movements to stim- 
ulate the appreciation of health in all its 
varied and basic significance to humanity ? 
[ 37 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


The remedy for the past indifference of edu- 
cation to physical welfare is in the teacher’s 
consciousness of community potentialities in 
health. Learned and technical lectures on 
physiology and hygiene are instructive; dra- 
matic presentations of child welfare and of the 
conquest of diseases are stimulating; clinics 
in the school and neighborhood are helpful 
and impressive; but the appreciation of health 
in its general influence on individual and so- 
ciety depends on a comprehensive under- 
standing of the community. It is therefore 
necessary to formulate a method of studying 
community health, so that educators may ac- 
quire the knowledge needed for the reorgani- 
zation of educational activities. 


SURVEY OF COMMUNITY HEALTH 


The primary consideration in a survey is 
the selection of a few searching questions re- 
lating to the vital elements. The elimination 
of unimportant inquiries is especially difficult 
in a health survey owing to the number and 
variety of factors involved. The sources of 

[ 38 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


information are, first, the usual vital statis- 
tics; second, inquiries as to sanitary arrange- 
ments; and third, observation and testimony 
as to habits, customs, and ideas that relate to 
physical culture and the value of health in 
human development. — 

It is neither necessary nor possible to pre- 
sent in this chapter technical directions for 
the prosecution of a health survey. Reference 
to text-books on physiology, hygiene, and san- 
itation will provide the points of inquiry as 
to prevalence of diseases and sanitary regula- 
tions. Even the brief account of the Syracuse 
demonstration mentions most of the condi- 
tions to be considered under these two heads. 
Unfortunately there is very little recognition 
of positive health measures to invigorate 
those who are well, and to stimulate them on 
to still higher levels of physical vigor. 

For the benefit of those who are indifferent 
to the ravages of disease even in civilized so- 
ciety it is necessary to present a few of the 
more significant facts concerning preventable 
illness. Inquiry from the health officers of 

[ 39 | 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


city, county, State, or national government 
will reveal the great social losses from defec- 
tive physique and avoidable illness. The 
following statements selected from reliable 
sources* are startling: 


Every year more than 500,000 citizens of 
the United States are slain by germs, and 
millions of others are laid on beds of sickness 
and pain by germ diseases that are prevent- 
able. 

About 75 per cent, or 16,000,000, of the 22,- 
000,000 school-children in the United States 
have physical defects which are potentially 
or actually detrimental to health. 

The more apparent defects and diseases 
are: mentally defective, 200,000 children; 
organic heart-disease, 250,000; tuberculosis, 
1,000,000; defective eyes, 5,000,000; defective 
hearing, 1,000,000; malnutrition, 3,000,000 to 
5,000,000; adenoids, diseased tonsils, or 
glandular defects, 3,000,000 to 5,000,000; 
weak foot arches, weak spines, or other joint 
defects, 2,000,000 to 4,000,000; defective 
teeth, 11,000,000 to 16,000,000. 

The military-draft statistics showed 56 de- 

*See especially reports of the Health Division, U. 8S. 


Census; Reports of the Surgeon-General, U.S. Army; and 
the American Child Health Association, New York City. 


[ 40 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


fects to every 100 men; 21 per cent of those 
economically available for military service 
were found to be physically unfit. In other 
words 1 out of every 5 young men called was 
found to be unfit to perform any type of 
military service either at home or abroad. 


These amazing facts seem to be unknown 
to the majority of American people. Com- 
parison of the losses and suffering presented 
in these statistics with those of railroad or 
marine accidents, which stir society to its 
depths, shows that the results of the accidents 
are comparatively unimportant. The trag- 
edies from cyclones and wars are only pass- 
ing events as compared with the cruel per- 
sistence and regularity of preventable dis- 
eases and physical defects. The real correc- 
tive for this unpardonable indifference is the 
incorporation of health and hygiene in the 
very warp and woof of education from top to 
bottom. The teacher must be conscious of 
disease ravages and still more conscious of 
health forces in the country as a whole, and 
especially in the school community. What, 

[ 41 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


then, are the approaches to this conscious- 
ness? The answer is suggested in the fol- 
lowing sections on vital statistics, health 
regulations and sanitary requirements, and 
health as the basis of character development. 

Vital Statistics—Strange as it may appear, 
the most definite basis of the consciousness 
of health and life is in the evidences of sick- 
ness and death. Vital statistics are chiefly 
concerned with death-rates. However un- 
fortunate this may be, it is a fact, and one 
which should not be permitted to hide the 
great value of vital statistics, not only as a 
measure of ill health and of the need for 
health, but also as a “‘thermometer’’ of so- 
cial welfare. Years of experience and study 
of social conditions have led to the conclu- 
sion that the best available measure of the 
general status of communities is to be found 
in vital statistics. Such records must, of 
course, be interpreted with as much knowl- 
edge as possible of general conditions. There 
are undoubtedly other more complete tests 
of social progress, but as yet they are avail- 

[ 42 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


able only in a very few communities. Even 
vital statistics are limited to the more ad- 
vanced nations of civilization. 

Health statistics usually present the general 
death-rate, the rate of infant mortality, the 
rates for special diseases, and sometimes the 
average length of life. These rates are of such 
importance as to require definition and illus- 
tration: 


(a) General death-rate is the number of 
deaths in one year per 1,000 of the inhabi- 
tants. 

(b) Infant-mortality rate is the number of 
deaths of infants under one year per 1,000 of 
such children born in that year. 

(c) Rates for special diseases are usually cal- 
culated on the basis of 100,000 inhabitants. 

(d) Average length of life is the average age 
of persons who die within a year. 


The general death-rate for the registration 
areas of the United States, where death rec- 
ords are kept, was 11.8 in 1922; for white 
11.4 and for colored 15.7. The differences in 
the rates for white and for colored people re- 

[ 43 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


flect the widely varying conditions in occu- 
pations, housing, education, character, and 
manner of life. Careful study of the basis of 
computation would doubtless modify the 
significance of these figures. Intimate knowl- 
edge of the communities would indicate 
types of differences which are not reflected 
in the statistics. With full allowance for all 
possible modifications, such figures deserve 
serious consideration as suggestions of differ- 
ences that should be studied. The contrast 
of New Zealand and its rate of 8.8 with the 
United States or Great Britain and their rates 
of 11.8 and 12.8 indicates social differences 
that should be understood. Similarly there is 
real meaning in the contrast of 12.8 for 
Sweden and 17.5 for France with 20.4 for 
Spain and 28.4 for Chile. 

The infant-mortality rate for the United 
States in 1923 was 77: for white infants, 73; 
for colored, 117. The infant-mortality rate 
obviously reflects unfavorable conditions of 
living much more quickly than the general 
rate, since infants are the first to suffer from 

[ 44 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


poor food, and especially from impure milk. 
Poverty, ignorance, carelessness, and insani- 
tary condition of the home or the neighbor- 
hood take their first toll from the very young. 
The limitations of primitive society are most 
clearly revealed in the astoundingly high in- 
fant mortality, ranging from 300 to 600 and 
sometimes still higher. 

The total number of deaths in the regis- 
tration areas of the United States for 1922 re- 
veals the dangers and losses from certain 
causes: diseases of the heart, 154,495; pneu- 
monia, 95,164; tuberculosis, 90,452; cancer, 
80,934; apoplexy, 79,362; Bright’s disease, 
76,804; and diarrhoea, 36,873. Such dreaded 
diseases as influenza with 29,277 deaths, 
diphtheria with 13,657, typhoid fever with 
6,981, and scarlet fever with 3,256, seem com- 
paratively much less destructive of life. The 
deaths through various kinds of accidents, 
amounted to 65,263; illness in early in- 
fancy, 59,406; malformation, 13,534; suicide, 
11,053; homicides, 7,788; and alcoholism, 
2,467. 

[ 45 | 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


These deaths, totaling almost 160,000, con- 
stitute a very heavy loss from causes largely 
avoidable. 

The average length of life in the United 
States for 1920 was 56.32 years; Sweden, 
55.75 for 1901 to 1910; England and Wales, 
53.42 for 1910-1912; France, 47.43 for 1898-— 
1903; India, 22.95 for 1901-1911. It is esti- 
mated that the length of life in Europe 300 
years ago was only 20 years. Reports indicate 
that New York City has added 12 years to 
the average longevity of its citizens since 
1866. 

These four measures of social vitality illus- 
trate four approaches to the study of com- 
munity health. They furnish bases of in- 
quiries in the neighborhood to be considered. 
The statistical results reveal not only the type 
of question to be asked but also the usual 
enemies of health and life in a civilized so- 
ciety. The order, items, and forms of the 
survey may be outlined as follows: 

1. Official Statistics of Health—The first 
inquiry should be directed to the officers of 

[ 46 | 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


health. If they are effectively equipped and 
organized, the necessary statistics may easily 
be obtained. 

2. Personal or School Inquiry.—In the 
absence. of official records, serious effort 
should be made to ascertain similar facts by 
personal or school inquiry. Patience, per- 
sistence, and tact in the questioning of phy- 
sicians, ministers, and undertakers should 
result in a fairly accurate estimate of the 
number of deaths, infant mortality, longevity, 
and the chief causes of death. Comparison 
of these figures with those of population as 
reported by the Government Census Bureau 
will give at least approximate rates. 

3. Study and Comparison of Rates.—The 
significance of the rates for the school com- 
munities depends upon a comparison with 
those of other communities or of the nation. 
At present there are but few among even 
the highly educated people who have any ac- 
curate idea of the meaning of a death-rate. 
Study of the rates should, of course, include 
an examination of the community conditions 

[ 47 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION © 


that cause illness and deaths and shorten the 
span of life. 

Health Regulations and Sanitary Require- 
ments.—It is not possible in this book to 
name all the numerous public and private 
health organizations of the United States or 
of any other civilized nation. Appreciation of 
health activities, however, requires a knowl- 
edge of at least the different types of organi- 
zations, and possibly their number, their ex- 
tensive personnel, and their large budgets. 
Some idea should also be obtained of the ser- 
vices of the medical profession. At the pres- 
ent time there seems to be a tendency to be 
critical of physicians on the ground that they 
have a rather exclusive interest in the curing 
of disease to the neglect of the prevention of 
illness. While there is doubtless basis for this 
criticism, it is important to recognize the re- 
markable human services rendered by the 
family doctor. In many respects it is the 
most sensible, the most effective, and the 
most humanized of all professional services 
rendered to mankind. The health survey of 

[ 48 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


any community should include an accurate 
account of the work and influence of the 
physicians. 

It is not the intention to present a scientific 
summary of health and sanitary regulations. 
Some of the more vital rules and inquiries are 
mentioned herewith: 

1. Provision for pure water, good milk, and 
clean, suitable food. These three elements 
are obviously basic to health. Progressive 
communities have enacted protective mea- 
sures relating to them which should be thor- 
oughly understood by all citizens. Infant 
mortality is largely traceable to impure milk. 
Many deaths and much illness are due to pol- 
luted water and improper food. 

2. Conditions of housing as regards sewer- 
age and garbage disposal, room space and 
fresh air for the occupants, water-supply and 
bathing facilities, protection from flies and 
mosquitoes. 

3. Suitability of clothing and shoes to 

weather conditions and to comfort in work. 

There are great losses in physical energy and 
[ 49 | 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


in life through a disregard of these simple 
necessities. 

4. Reporting of all contagious diseases to 
the health department and the maintenance 
of proper quarantine restrictions. Hospitals, 
clinics, and laboratories for the varied health 
precautions such as vaccinations, typhoid 
inoculations, tuberculosis diagnosis, illness of 
indigents, instruction in the care of infants. 

The remarkable results of modern methods 
of sanitation are among the most striking 
achievements of medical science and social 
organizations. Death-rates in some communi- 
ties have been reduced to a half or a third of 
those prevailing twenty or thirty years ago; 
longevity has been doubled; some diseases 
have been almost eliminated. The New 
Zealand general death-rate of less than nine, 
and the infant mortality of only about fifty 
are worthy to be ranked among modern 
miracles. Even this progress is, however, only 
a promise of still greater conquests of disease 
for which civilized society must strive. 

Nor can the campaigns be limited to the 


[ 50 | 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


higher levels of civilization. The influences 
must be extended to the lower levels, where 
the losses are still appalling. Indifference to 
primitive people cannot be justified either on 
the principle of the “survival of the fittest”’ 
or the “devil take the hindmost.” In the 
first place, the method of neglect has not 
usually worked according to the expectation 
of the favored class. Plagues have a way of 
spreading into the higher group. The lower 
group, left alone, has often not only multi- 
plied, even though at slower rate, but its 
increase has produced disease centres dan- 
gerous to the health, morals, and morale of 
those far away as well as those near by. 
There is a compulsion to altruistic endeavors 
for health that does not depend upon human 
love. Those who regard themselves as “‘fit”’ 
cannot retain their handicap by letting the 
unfit “stew in their own juice.” The only 
safe method of eliminating the unfit seems to 
be education adapted to their needs, whether 
hygienic, economic, mental, or moral. 
Health Basis of Mental and Character De- 
[ 51 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


velopment.—Complete appreciation of the 
social significance of health requires a recog- 
nition of health as the basis of mental and 
character development. Gratitude for the cure 
and prevention of disease and hope for still 
greater victories of prevention often fall short 
of the conviction that a sound body is as a 
rule essential to a sound mind. Here is a 
field for research that should command the 
best minds in numerous sciences. Several 
good beginnings have been made by psy- 
chologists and sociologists. Students of ethics 
and religion are increasingly realizing the in- 
timate dependency of character on physical 
welfare. Economists are more and more dis- 
covering that health is an essential of effec- 
tive labor, wise administration, and resource- 
ful invention. 

Consciousness of community health must, 
therefore, seek to ascertain health possibilities 
in these various directions. The search is far 
less definite and more difficult in some re- 
spects than that for the prevalence of dis- 
eases and for methods of prevention. The 


[ 52 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


survey is here concerned with attitudes and 
convictions, with personal and family habits 
and customs, and with social provisions for 
the physical development of physically nor- 
mal people. It is a field in which students 
are still only pioneering. The inquiries here- 
with proposed are merely suggestions of the 
methods of approach: 

1. What are the provisions for physical 
exercise and the development of health 
habits? Are they suitable to the needs of the 
different classes, men and women, adult and 
youth)» Are they adequate in number and do 
they reach all the community ? 

2. What type of occupations require the 
corrective influences of physical exercise? 
What is being done to supply the need? 

3. What is the health value of prevailing 
recreations? Do those in sedentary occupa- 
tions frequent amusements of a corrective 
nature ? 

_ 4. What are the evidences of community 

sentiment as regards proper food, adequate 

sleep, and sufficient rest? This information 
[ 53 J 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


may be obtained in part through examination 
of the community reading, such as newspa- 
pers, magazines, and books; in part through 
a knowledge of public addresses; partly 
through physicians, ministers, tradesmen, and 
public officials. 

5. What proportion of the community has 
arranged for a regular health examination } 

6. Compile all available evidence to show 
how far the schools, the churches, the gov- 
ernment, and private organizations regard 
health as a basis of mental and character de- 
velopment. It is probable that much of the 
evidence on this inquiry will be negative, 
showing a lamentable disregard of this rela- 
tionship. Certainly school instruction, ser- 
mons, and government publications and 
enactments show insufficient appreciation of 
health in these higher realms. 

The “‘tension of modern life’ has recently 
received much public consideration. Thus 
Lord Dawson, physician to the King of Eng- 
land, maintains that the rush and strain of 
civilized communities are working serious 

[ 54 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 
injury to the physique and mentality of the 
individual, and the statistical expert of a 
large life-insurance company confirms Lord 
Dawson’s warning in the following signif- 
icant statement: 


Lord Dawson is unquestionably correct in 
his apprehensions regarding the mental and 
emotional effects of the present-day strain. 
Much of the so-called civilized existence is a 
rather hectic experience, with often disastrous 
results upon the highly organized and always 
complex mental and bodily condition. The 
fact must not be overlooked that the average 
person to-day is largely helpless in a struggle 
with an enormous amount of impressional ex- 
perience, the immediate and sometimes last- 
ing effect of which is profound mental con- 
fusion. 


The medical officer of another large insurance 
company modifies the warning by a summa- 
ry of the well-known medical and sanitary 
achievements, but agrees that the rank and 
file of the medical profession are not trained 
to give advice and direction as to the larger 
implications of health. 
[ 55 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


EDUCATION AND COMMUNITY HEALTH 


An appreciation of the responsibility of 
education for community health is the natu- 
ral result of a survey that includes an under- 
standing of vital statistics, the requirements 
of sanitation, and the relation of health to the 
mental and character development of indi- 
vidual and community. The educator is 
urged not to be discouraged by the numerous 
and diverse inquiries suggested. What mat- 
ters most is an attitude of genuine research 
and interest in health. Once a real beginning 
has been made, the interrelations of health 
and education will develop naturally and 
proceed to results of great value. 

For the guidance of persons responsible for 
the direction of these interrelations, it will 
probably be helpful to suggest some of the 
more important methods of realizing health 
possibilities through education. The four ele- 
ments of school organization to be considered 
are as follows: 

1. The teaching staff of the school should 

[ 56 | 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


be sincerely conscious of the health needs 
and possibilities of the community. Either 
through participation in the survey or 
through a careful study of its results, every 
officer and teacher should know the vital 
importance of health in community welfare. 
Such a consciousness is a guarantee that 
health will be adequately imparted to the 
pupils. 

2. School plant, equipment, and adminis- 
trative provisions should be planned to im- 
part the necessary health influences within 
the school and in the neighborhood. Require- 
ments in all classrooms include adequate air 
and light, and every condition conducive to 
the development of the physique. Other de- 
sirable arrangements are outdoor classrooms, 
clinics, laboratories, athletic equipment, and 
dormitories built according to the require- 
ments of hygiene and sanitation. 

The administrative regulations, such as 
schedule, length of recitations, balance of 
sedentary and active employments, all have 
an important bearing on health. The devel- 


[ 57 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


opment of health habits through school proc- 
esses, including those of classrooms, dormi- 
tory, shops, and playground is among the 
greatest responsibilities and opportunities of 
education. | 

The adoption of the “‘project method” of 
teaching increases the possibilities of relating 
all activities and subjects to health as well as 
to the other three essentials. Consciousness 
of the fundamental elements of community 
life, as represented by the four essentials, en- 
ables the teacher to direct the expansion and 
radiations of a “project” into the various 
phases of society with the assurance that the 
pupils will acquire a comprehensive under- 
standing of the subject. Community essen- 
tials thus strengthen the project method by 
eliminating the haphazard approach to which 
the method is prone, while at the same time 
providing for freedom of search and em- 
phasis. 

3. Special courses and departments in 
health, hygiene, and sanitation should be as- 
signed a time and place distribution in the 

[ 58 | 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


curriculum, so that every pupil may be 
guaranteed an opportunity to acquire a real 
consciousness of community health. 

4, Most important of all, health as a com- 
munity essential should, whenever possible, be 
the coloring of every subject, of every project, 
and of every administrative provision from 
the lowest school grade through the activities 
of even the colleges and universities. Health 
as one of the four simples is to share in the 
resynthesis of education, so eloquently advo- 
cated by a well-known historian,* for the cor- 
relation of the grotesque fragments of knowl- 
edge and training now confusing both teacher 
and taught. 

The implications of this recommendation 
are so comprehensive and searching as to re- 
quire further explanation and _ illustration. 
The following comments are merely sugges- 
tive of procedure and processes for relating 
health to various gradations and activities 
of the school system. There is a call for real 
ingenuity, for patient and wise experimenta- 

*See Chapter I, page 7. 
[ 59 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


tion, and for unswerving determination to 
enable education to carry its full weight to- 
ward the realization of health potentialities. 

Elementary Schools.—The elementary grades 
with their masses of children constitute the 
most general opportunity for the inculcation 
of health knowledge and hygienic habits. 
Even without radical changes in the curricu- 
lum, the three R’s, occupying the major pro- 
portion of time and energy, are susceptible of 
health content of very great value. Consid- 
erable progress has already been made in this 
respect by a number of progressive school 
systems, chiefly in America. 

The arithmetical processes may be used to 
convey some of the vital facts of hygiene and 
sanitation. Even the younger children may 
count the number of people in a village or 
town area, such as a portion of a street; the 
proportion of children; the number of men and 
women; the number of sick people; the num- 
ber living in a house; the window space in 
relation to light and air required by the oc- 
cupants. Teacher and pupils may obtain 

[ 60 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


figures relating to food values; the amount 
of money spent on useless or harmful sweets 
or drinks; the sleep requirements. Vital sta- 
tistics with their vital meanings, now practi- 
cally unknown even by college and university 
graduates, could be discussed arithmetically 
in the upper elementary grades. The com- 
munity gains with sanitation and the losses 
without sanitation would furnish numerous 
problems of thrilling interest. 

Reading and writing are easily adapted to 
the teaching of health and sanitation. Nor 
is it necessary to stress the depressing phases 
of health needs. The cheer and buoyancy of 
sound physique may enliven the instruction. 
Biographical sketches of great scientists like 
Pasteur may be introduced. 

Lessons in elementary science and their 
health implications may be given separately 
or as parts of arithmetic and reading. 

The simple civic activities of the neighbor- 
hood may be discovered by teacher and pupils 
in connection with the three R’s or as special 
lessons in community civics. 

[ 61 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


Secondary Schools.—Practically every sub- 
ject and activity in secondary schools may 
be adapted in such a way as to impart an 
appreciation of health. The history of Eu- 
rope and America has numerous illustrations 
of the tragic need of hygiene and sanitation, 
even though the records of these conditions 
are only now being recognized as of histori- 
cal value. Literature too pays tribute to 
health, though all too meagre. The ancient 
classics are possibly richer in health refer- 
ences than those of the early modern period. 
At any rate here is a field worthy of search 
by specialists in literature of various periods, 
so that the material may be available for 
secondary education. 

Social studies, including civics, history, and 
the records of both public and private organ- 
izations for social welfare, are fruitful sources 
of information concerning health. Para- 
graphs and even chapters of reports issued 
by the departments of health of cities, coun- ~ 
ties, and states, both in America and in 
Europe, may profitably be studied in such 

[ 62 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


secondary courses as English, foreign lan- 
guages, or science. 

The mathematics and physical sciences of 
the secondary schools are so directly related 
to medical and sanitary science as to be 
easily adapted to the teaching of health. 
Illustrations are scarcely necessary, especially 
for science teachers. The relation of mathe- 
matics to a scientific appreciation of hygiene 
has not, however, been adequately recog- 
nized. Computation of vital statistics is 
among the most profitable uses of mathe- 
matics in secondary education. 

Colleges.—The present perplexity as to the 
content and purpose of a liberal-arts college 
reflects the need for the directive influences 
of a genuine appreciation of the elements of 
society, including, of course, health. Pro- 
fessor Richardson, of Dartmouth College, in 
his notable “Study of a Liberal College”’ has 
described the confusion of college practices 
and policies and shown the value, first, of 
“capitalizing the interest of the individual; 
second, of providing a major requiring a con- 

[ 63 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


siderable portion of the later years of the 
course; third, of abandoning the principle 
that acquaintance with certain subjects is 
an absolute necessity for an educated man; 
and fourth, the emphasizing of relationships 
in the field of knowledge, and the essential 
unity of knowledge as a whole.” 

These excellent recommendations seem to 
point directly to the value of the conscious- 
ness of community as the unifying attitude. 
The four essentials of community are entitled 
to serious consideration in the selection of the 
major research to which the interest of the 
student is to be guided. As in the develop- 
ment of the “project’’ now increasingly used 
in the elementary and secondary schools, so 
in the expansions of the “major study,” the 
four elemental simples should be of constant 
use in determining lines of inquiry and em- 
phasis. 

In accordance with this conviction, health 
as the first of the community elements must 
be accorded an important place in the formu- 
lation of college instruction and training. 

[ 64 ] 


HEALTH AND SANITATION 


The present status of health in the college 
curriculum is not satisfactory. Arrange- 
ments for athletics and games so abundantly 
made in some colleges are not sufficient. 
Elaborate courses for those who are special- 
izing in hygiene and sanitation as a vocation 
do not answer the purpose. Community 
health as one of the determinants of educa- 
tion should influence the training of all stu- 
dents. Every subject and every department 
should be required to make every possible 
contribution to health that is natural to its 
content and organization. There is, of course, 
no thought of encouraging artificial interpre- 
tations of knowledge toward health interest, 
but it is urged that college history, literature, 
science, and college life shall realize their im- 
plications for health. 


[ 65 ] 


CHAPTER III 


APPRECIATION AND USE OF 
ENVIRONMENT 


EFFECTIVE use of the environment in primi- 
tive society requires the cultivation of the 
soil for food; manual dexterity in the use of 
such materials as wood, clay, and leather for 
habitation and clothing; the conquest of 
neighbors or a friendly alliance with them. 
Appreciation and use of environment in civi- 
lized society include not only the struggle for 
the necessities of life and the establishment 
of peace with adjacent peoples, but also 
adaptation to an intricate economic organi- 
zation, scientific understanding of natural 
forces, artistic appreciation of nature, and 
co-operative relations with humanity of what- 
ever color or country. In its simplest terms 
this appreciation involves only the successful 
answers to the two old elemental and all- 
important questions of “How to make a 

[ 66 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 
living>”? and “Who is my neighbor)” In 
its comprehensive implications, appreciation 
of environment includes the researches and 
achievements of modern physical science; the 
principles and processes described in eco- 
nomics; and the human elements and organ- 
izations presented in sociology. 

Whether simple or comprehensive, appre- 
ciation of environment is essential to effective 
education. Hitherto school programmes have 
been formulated without adequate regard for 
the environment. Recent movements of edu- 
cation to provide preparation for sound rela- 
tions to resources and people are significant 
beginnings in the right direction. Among 
subjects and courses which have a direct 
bearing upon the environment are community 
civics, vocational guidance, social studies, 
geography, social and industrial history, 
manual training, domestic science, agricul- 
tural instruction and practice, applied science, 
_and nature-study. The increasing prominence 
of such subjects and activities in the school 
curriculum is adding much to the effective- 

[ 67 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


ness of education, but not to the extent that 
appreciation of environment should influence 
the redirection of school work. 

Appreciation of the environment as a part 
of the consciousness of community depends 
on an attitude of inquiry toward the neigh- 
borhood; it requires the educator to be alert 
to the potentialities of resources and people; 
he must be so aware of the environment as 
to use every possible school act to fit the 
pupil to appreciate, to use, and to serve that 
environment, whether material or human. 
Such courses as vocational guidance and 
community civics fulfil only a part of the 
school responsibility. Many of their lessons 
can be emphasized in other courses. Some 
can be better presented in other school ac- 
tivities. In any case, relations to the environ- 
ment are of such importance as to require 
their full influence in the school to prepare 
the pupil to render the greatest possible 
service. 

Important as this appreciation is to educa- 
tion, its practical value to the teacher depends 

[ 68 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 

very largely on the simplicity with which it 
can be acquired. As one of the four “essen- 
tials,’ knowledge of environment must be 
sufficiently fundamental to be true, and suffi- 
ciently simple to be practical. The educa- 
tional approach must begin with the simpler 
and more obvious elements of neighborhood. 
In rural areas, it is comparatively easy to 
ascertain the resources and the population. 
Agricultural use of the soil is obviously the 
primary consideration in the open country 
and the comparatively sparse population may 
be quickly observed. In urban districts the 
analysis of the environment is a more difficult 
task. Even the puzzling variety of city ac- 
tivities and peoples will, however, respond to 
the patient and persistent inquiries of the 
teacher who really desires to relate teaching 
to the environment. 

Such terms as environment, neighborhood, 
and community are the cause of much con- 
fusion and uncertainty in social surveys and 
educational recommendations. This is es- 
pecially true in the analysis of urban condi- 

[ 69 | 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


tions. Who is my neighbor? Is it the family 
in the adjacent apartment whom I have never 
seen) Or is it the milkman and vegetable 
farmer who live twenty miles in the country ? 
Is it my fellow passenger on the street-car, 
or is it the coal-miner two hundred miles 
away? The apartment dwellers and fellow 
passengers are neighbors of contiguity; the 
milkman and the miner are neighbors through 
mutual interest. City dwellers are subjected, 
consciously or unconsciously, to a consider- 
able variety of neighborly contacts from 
merely living next door to a family, unknown 
and almost unseen, to intimate associations 
with families living in different parts of the 
city, or even in distant suburbs, but united 
in some such common interest as occupation, 
or religion, or recreation, or education. These 
relationships are in some respects fairly sim- 
ple and may be discerned by any teacher who 
resolves to know the social conditions to 
which education must be related. In other 
respects they are as complicated and far- 
reaching as the influences of economic and 
[ 70 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


social forces, which have long been the con- 
cern of scientists in all civilized countries. 

It is important to note that the environ- 
ment or neighborhood, determined by con- 
tiguity or mutual interest, as defined above, 
may include not only those in adjacent areas 
but also those in distant regions. The inter- 
dependence of urban and rural peoples should 
be clearly recognized. City dwellers are too 
generally ignorant of their dependence upon 
those who cultivate the soil and care for the 
animals necessary to the food and milk sup- 
ply. There is also the dependence of both 
urban and rural peoples upon commerce, 
manufactures, and mines. Community of 
interests has thus become intensive and ex- 
tensive. The amazing and even startling con- 
gestion of peoples in ever enlarging cities and 
the remarkable development of travel, trans- 
portation, and communication, have brought 
institutions and peoples together who are 
strangers to each other and ignorant of their 
interdependence. 

What, then, are the inquiries that will re- 

Laon iy 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


veal this interdependence and community of 
interests so vital to social progress and har- 
mony? First are those relating to the ma- 
terial resources and the human elements of 
the community; second, those concerned with 
the attitudes of individuals and community 
toward these resources and peoples. These 
inquiries, outlined at length in the section on 
survey, are summarized in the following ques- 
tions: 

1. What are the physical resources neces- 
sary and available to the community ? 

2. What are the population elements—the 
number of people, their national and racial 


origin, their classification by sex, age, and 
occupation ? 


The three attitudes toward the environ- 
ment are reflected in the following inquiries: 


1. Does the community appreciate the ele- 
ments of environment? Do the people un- 
derstand their dependence upon the physical 
resources? Do they respond to the artistic 
qualities of their surroundings? Do they 
know their neighbors of other races? Have 
they the opportunity or the interest to search 


[ 72 | 


ENVIRONMENT 


out the worth-while qualities of foreign peo- 
ples? 

2. What are the qualifications of the peo- 
ple to make effective use of the resources and 
economic opportunities available in the neigh- 
borhood? Do they have the mind to co- 
operate with their neighbors, and especially 
with those of different race and nationality > 

3. What is the ability and custom of the 
people as regards service to the community ? 
Is conservation of resources and improvement 
of the property and people a part of their 
programme ? 

Such questions at least illustrate the ap- 
proach of the educator-who would acquire a 
consciousness of environment as a basis for 
his school policies. It is evident that they 
include the school efforts known as “voca- 
tional guidance” as well as the age-long 
search as to “Who is our neighbor?” It is 
believed that they broaden and deepen the 
search for vocation to meet the conditions 
and problems of modern society. An honest 
application of such inquiries to present con- 
ditions in America and Europe will reveal 
the dangers of the urbanization of modern 


[ 73 | 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


society, the consequent discouragement of 
rural life, the futility of centring favors and 
inventions on manufacturing, the unfortunate 
neglect of agriculture, and the menace of 
racial and national prejudice in the hopeless 
and foolish aim of making all people iden- 
tical. The most baffling and fundamental 
responsibilities of America and Europe at the 
present time are, first, the restoration of 
agriculture and rural life to their proper place 
in social organization, and, second, the elimi- 
nation of racial prejudice and national rival- 
ries by the substitution of an appreciation of 
racial diversity and international co-opera- 
tion. Such a programme must be rooted in 
school activities that include every phase of 
education from the elementary school to the 
university. 


SURVEY OF RESOURCES AND POPULATION 


References have been made both to the 
simplicity and to the complexity of a survey 
of modern society as regards resources, vo- 
cational opportunities, and co-operative re- 

[ 74 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


lations of the population elements. In prim- 
itive society the survey is comparatively 
simple, comprising information about the 
agricultural conditions, the materials required 
for clothing and housing, and the varieties of 
tribes in adjacent territory. In colonial coun- 
tries the survey must also include the eco- 
nomic, governmental, and social organizations 
introduced by the foreign authority. 

In order to achieve the simplicity and real- 
ity essential to the beginnings of a survey of 
modern society, it is urged that the inquiries 
shall parallel those applicable to primitive 
society. Such a study has some of the advan- 
tages of laboratory conditions in which com- 
plicating and artificial elements are removed 
so that the forces that matter may be more 
clearly observed. 

The definitions already given of the terms 
“neighborhood,” “environment,” and “‘com- 
munity,” have shown that the extent of the 
community is determined both by contiguity 
of residence and by mutual dependence for 
the necessities of life or other interests. Com- 


[ 75 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


munity thus defined follows the interest in the 
necessities of life, whether in primitive society, 
where the sources of food and clothing are 
largely at hand; or in the modern rural com- 
munity, where a majority of the necessities 
are usually at hand, but where an important 
minority must be obtained from mines and 
manufactures at a distance; or in urban com- 
munities, where the dependence for most of 
the supplies extends long distances to mines 
and farms widely scattered. 

This wide distribution of the resources 
necessary to the urban community is of prime 
importance in formulating the survey and, 
therefore, in determining the responsibility 
of education. Since the basic elements of 
food, clothing, and habitation are almost en- 
tirely derived from the open country, it fol- 
lows that even the urban survey must include 
a study of rural production. The artificial and 
perplexing arrangements of streets, apart- 
ments and tenement houses, stores and ware- 
houses, must not be permitted to hide the 
vital importance of agriculture and mines 
from urban youth. 

[ 76 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


Rural Resources.—As the resources of rural 
communities are thus evidently essential to 
all types of neighborhoods, it seems best to 
outline typical inquiries to search out the 
community resources, productions, activities, 
and occupations. Reference to the surveys 
made by government departments of agri- 
culture and government census bureaus will 
supply both significant facts and methods of 
survey. Some of the more important ques- 
tions are herewith presented as illustrations: 


1. Acreage of arable land) What propor- 
tion is cultivated» Value per acre? Tenure? 
How much is owned? How much is rented ? 

2. What crops are cultivated? Production 
per acre? Compare with average acreage pro- 
duction for the country. 

3. Compare the proportion of crops used 
for family food with that used for marketing 
purposes. 

4, What kinds of live stock are kept? 
Total value? The value of animals and prod- 
ucts sold? Are methods of care in accordance 
with improved standards ? 

5. What are the marketing facilities ? 

6. Is there any form of co-operation in pro- 
duction, milling, or sale? 


[77 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


7. Is the community adequately supplied 
with such public utilities as roads, railroads, 
telephones, and telegraphs ? 

8. Is the labor-supply adequate and effi- 
cient? Are conditions of labor satisfactory ? 

9. Are such social institutions as the home, 
the school, the church, medical attendance, 
and recreation centres sufficiently satisfactory 
to attract population ? 

10. How effective are the governmental 
activities for the improvement of the com- 
munity ? 

11. What are the esthetic elements of the 
community? Are they appreciated ? 

12. Is the region historically interesting ? 
Enumerate the historical events of signifi- 
cance. 

13. In what ways and to what extent is the 
rural neighborhood dependent upon towns 
and cities? upon mining and oil concerns? 
upon manufacturing establishments > 

14, What is the public opinion as regards 
conservation of natural resources, such as 
soil, forests, water-supply, and scenic beauty 
of the community ? 


Urban Resources and Activities —Survey of 
an urban environment, however simple, 
should recognize relationships determined by 

[ 78 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


contiguity of residence and also relationships 
resulting from dependence upon other com- 
munities, rural or otherwise. The typical ele- 
ments of contiguous or residential environ- 
ment may best be observed in the study of 
prevailing occupations, housing, and such 
public utilities as street-cars, railways, bus 
lines, and other means of communication, 
electric. light and gas, water-supply, and other 
necessities. The elements of dependence upon 
other communities are associated with food- 
supplies, clothing, building-material, coal and 
wood. A study of the origin of these supplies 
will largely determine what may be called the 
environment of dependence. This study of 
the non-residential environment will have 
many elements in common with that of the 
rural districts and mine regions from which 
the city obtains its supplies. 

Many illustrations of city surveys may be 
found to suggest types of questions to be 
asked. The following suggestions and com- 
ments present forms of inquiry relating to the 
activities and resources of an urban unit: 

[ 79 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


1. What are the principal occupations of 
the people? The Government Census Bureau 
probably reports the number in manufac- 
tures, trade, transportation, clerical and per- 
sonal services, professions and agriculture. 
Observation of these occupations locally 
should be of great value in the appreciation 
of the environment. 

2. What proportion of the workers are 
men? What proportion women? children 
under fifteen years of age? 

3. What are the conditions of labor? 
hours per day? holidays? safety regulations ? 

4. What occupations are organized into 
labor-unions? What are the regulations of 
the unions as regards conditions of labor, 
various forms of insurance, training of ap- 
prentices, and other matters of impor- 
tance ? 

5. What are the facilities and organizations 
for the vocational development of the youth, 
both boys and girls) in manufacturing or 
commercial companies } in mechanical trades ? 
in home economics? in agriculture? in pro- 
fessions > in art? 

6. To what extent is urban organization 
dependent upon public utilities? The sur- 
vey should reveal vital contributions of mu- 
nicipal systems for transporting passengers 
and goods; lighting and heating; telephone 


[ 80 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


and telegraph; water-supply and sewage-dis- 
posal; police and fire regulations. 

7. In what ways and to what extent is the 
urban community dependent on rural com- 
munities for food and clothing? on mines 
and quarries and forests for buildings? on 
manufacturing centres and commercial com- 
panies? Study of rural neighborhood and 
mining conditions is absolutely essential to 
urban appreciation of environment. 


Urban and Rural Population.—The popu- 
lations in urban and rural districts differ 
chiefly in the density of habitation. The con- 
gestion of people in the city produces radi- 
cally different conditions from those of the 
comparatively sparse population in the open 
country. There is not, however, the same de- 
gree of interdependence between types of 
urban and rural peoples as in the case of food- 
supplies. The two populations may, there- 
fore, be studied separately according to ques- 
tions which are practically the same. 


1. What is the population of the com- 
-munity? Indicate rate of increase and com- 
pare it with the rate for the nation. 


[ 81 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


2. Classify the population according to 
available census data to show number by 
sex, age, race, foreign or native born. 

3. Distinguish the racial groups so far as 
possible by their occupations, their literacy, 
age and sex classification; marital status, 
State or country of birth; health record. As- 
certain the contributions of each group to 
national welfare. Search for their achieve- 
ments as a race or nation in their native 
country. 

4, Search for any evidence of co-operation 
or friction between the population groups. 

5. Study the residential areas of dif- 
ferent population groups in relation to each 
other. 


EDUCATION AND ENVIRONMENT 


Through the survey, the environment, de- 
fined in terms of resources and of population, 
should become a vital reality in the mind of 
the educator. The natural result should be 
that school aim, policies, and methods are 
colored, reorganized, and adapted to meet the 
needs of the environment. Every school ac- 
tivity will be expected to contribute directly 
to the development of sound and helpful atti- 

[ 82 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


tudes toward the environment. These atti- 
tudes, formulated in questions in preceding 
paragraphs, are as follows: 

1. Appreciation of the resources and popu- 
lation. 

2. Ability to make use of the environment 
for self-support and for the normal activity 
of the neighborhood. 

3. Ability to serve the community by con- 
servation of resources and by co-operation 
with adjacent peoples. 

Among the results of such a consciousness 
of environment will be the recognition of the 
educational importance of agriculture both 
to city and to rural youth. Urban schools will 
help to counteract the indifference to rural 
life. Rural youth will learn to appreciate the 
essential value of their agricultural surround- 
ings to all society. They will thus carry on 
the realities of education as they were organ- 
ized by the pioneers of rural America in their 
struggle with nature. The limited and rather 
literary sphere of education, as originally con- 
- ceived and still prevailing, especially in most 
[ 83 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


of Europe, will be broadened to influence all 
types of environment. 

Another result of community consciousness 
will be a better understanding of the educa- 
tional values of industrial training and the 
processes of physical science. Education has 
been so long associated with books and the 
art of expression as to seem strange when pre- 
sented in the form of “learning by doing,”’ or 
of the creative arts. The increase of indus- 
trial and technical schools is not due merely 
to a narrow and selfish economic interest in 
machinery and construction. It is inspired 
by a broad conception of the intimate and 
real relation of industrial activities to the 
mental, moral, and social progress of hu- 
manity. 

Appreciation of neighboring peoples is of 
especial importance in urban communities 
where the variety of races and nationalities 
is threatening the peace of the community. 
The heterogeneity of population in America 
and the clustering of small nations in Europe 
insistently call for an intelligent understand- 

[ 84 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


ing of people who differ. Education should 
assist the community to recognize the value 
of identity as well as the value of differences 
in races and nationalities. Successful co- 
operation must be based not only on the 
recognition of identities, but also on the en- 
couragement of differentiations natural to 
races and peoples. The policy of forcing all 
people into one mould is as impossible 
and dangerous as the effort to establish 
social castes with their insurmountable bar- 
riers. 

In order to achieve these vital aims, the 
educational system must be adapted in ac- 
cordance with the consciousness of environ- 
ment. The adaptations and reorganizations 
required are as follows: 

1. The teaching staff should be aware of 
the findings of the survey as well as of the 
attitudes and results presented above. Spe- 
cialization of staff preparation should not be 
so extreme as to exclude a general aDPr eos 
tion of environment. 

2. School plant, equipment, organization, 

[ 85 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


and administration should, as far as possible, 
be planned so that the educational activities 
may be related to both material resources and 
population. Appreciation of rural life neces- 
sitates either visits to country districts or 
practice in field and barn. Home economics 
and manual training can best be taught in 
rooms arranged for the purpose. Physical 
science demands laboratory facilities. While 
much may be done without machinery and 
special rooms, it is desirable that the school 
administration make every effort to provide 
suitable organization and equipment. For the 
study of neighborhood populations the school 
programme should be sufficiently flexible to 
provide time for actual visitation and co- 
operation. 

3. Special courses such as community 
civics, vocational guidance, industrial and 
agricultural training, home economics, arts 
and sciences are already provided in many 
schools. Such courses, synthesized under the 
general subject of environment, can contrib- 
ute vitally to community education. Exten- 

[ 86 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


sion movements, including farm and home 
demonstration, boys’ and girls’ clubs, and or- 
ganizations of adults have important possi- 
bilities. 

' 4, Consciousness of community resources, 
vocations, and populations should color all 
instruction and training that can naturally 
be related to the environment. Illustrations 
of successful adaptation may be found in effec- 
tive schools of almost every grade. 

The following suggestions are offered for 
the consideration of those who would realize 
the implications of a living consciousness of 
community. 

Elementary Classes——The survey of rural 
or urban environment should offer abundant 
material for the use of elementary classes 
from the lowest to the highest grade. The 
three R’s can be almost constantly used in 
the interpretation of the resources, activities, 
and peoples of the community. Each ques- 
tion in the survey can be made the basis of a 
lesson in arithmetic, reading, or writing. In 
the lowest classes foods, stores, and peoples 

[ 87 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


may be counted; pictures may be made and 
games invented to continue the interest in 
these simple elements of environment. Each 
advancing grade or standard can easily pass 
from the simpler relationships of the elements 
to the more complicated forms of environ- 
ment as they appear in the survey or as the 
teacher or pupil imagines them. 

Among the typical arithmetical processes 
are computations of food-supplies, such as 
milk, vegetables, cereals, fruit, meats, canned 
goods. The daily consumption may be cal- 
culated; costs of different supplies may be 
compared; food values may be reduced to 
calories; heat and light may be computed in 
terms of coal and transportation; and such 
items as clothing and rents may be studied 
in relation to other living costs. Interesting 
problems may be formed in relation to the 
number and value of domestic animals, such 
as chickens, pigs, cows; also such products as 
eggs, butter, and milk. Statistical compari- 
son of the egg production of the country with 
the value of wheat will add greatly to the 

[ 88 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


appreciation of fowls. The higher classes 
may deal with calculations pertaining to the 
composition of plants and to the larger com- 
mercial transactions in buying and selling. 
From food, clothing, and habitation they 
may pass to the enumeration of peoples and 
the calculation of literacy, wages, mortality 
figures of different groups, proportion of chil- 
dren, occupations, and savings. 

Likewise reading and writing have almost 
innumerable possibilities. There are books 
and magazines describing the remarkable 
activities of rural Denmark and other parts 
of the world where agriculture has received 
proper recognition. Bulletins of the United 
States Department of Agriculture, and nu- 
merous reports from State colleges and uni- 
versities may be consulted. Literature, an- 
cient and modern, refers eloquently to rural 
life. The adventures and achievements of 
commerce and industry are described in 
poetry, prose, and historical writings. Un- 
fortunately such writings are not as numerous 
as the importance of the subject deserves, 

[ 89 | 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


but this type of material is worthy of diligent 
search by teacher and pupil. 

Secondary Classes—The use of materials 
and interests related to the environment is 
as valuable for secondary education as for 
the elementary grades. Science, mathematics, 
literature, and history are all needed to cul- 
tivate an appreciation of the wealth, activi- 
ties, and peoples of either the rural or urban 
districts. There is a natural sequence of 
presentation for such material from the ele- 
mentary to the secondary grades. Physical 
science will deal with plant life; the composi- 
tion of soil, fuels, foods, and clothing; heat 
and electricity. Mathematics will be neces- 
sary to explain commercial transactions, costs 
of production and transportation, movements 
and proportions of populations. History and 
literature may describe the value and beauty 
of the surroundings; the characteristics of the 
people; the strifes and adjustments of popu- 
lation; and especially the historic processes 
through which peoples have worked out 
present relationships. Effective use of the 

[ 90 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


facts assembled by the survey will gradually 
reveal to the pupil the special contributions 
to be made by him in the use of resources as 
well as the advantages of genuine co-opera- 
tion with neighbors of all races. 

College Education.—The interactions of 
peoples and resources; the interdependence 
of urban and rural communities; the efforts 
to know the real elements of environment; 
the selection of vocation; the determination 
to conserve resources and to serve humanity: 
these are among the contributions of environ- 
ment to the programme of college study and 
training. The definite facts assembled by 
the survey, wisely used by college authori- 
ties, will eliminate the danger of mere senti- 
ment. Under the guidance of facts relating 
to environment every college subject and 
every college activity may be made purpose- 
ful. The contribution of physical science and 
mathematics seems too obvious for further 
presentation. Recent interpretations of an- 
cient and modern literature are increasingly 
directed to reveal the conditions and activi- 

[ 91 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


ties of neighborhood. Historical researches 
are discovering more and more material con- 
cerning the simple resources and the daily 
activities essential to sound progress. Eileen 
Power, of the University of London, admi- 
rably illustrates this approach to environment 
in the preface to “ Medizeval People”’: 


In point of fact, there is often as much ma- 
terial for reconstructing the life of some quite 
ordinary person as there is for writing a his- 
tory of Robert of Normandy or of Philippa 
of Hainault; and the lives of ordinary people 
so reconstructed are, if less spectacular, cer- 
tainly not less interesting. For history, after 
all, is valuable only in so far as it lives, and 
Maeterlinck’s cry, “There are no dead,” 
should always be the historian’s motto. It is 
the idea that history is about dead people, 
or, worse still, about movements and condi- 
tions which seem but vaguely related to the 
labors and passions of flesh and blood, which 
has driven history from book-shelves where 
the historical novel still finds a welcome place. 

Thus Bodo (a character described in the 
book) illustrates peasant life and an early 
phase of a typical medieval estate; Marco 
Polo, Venetian trade with the East; Madame 


[ 92 ] 


ENVIRONMENT 


Eglantyne, monastic life; the Menagier’s wife; 
domestic life in the middle-class home and 
medieval ideas about women; Thomas Bet- 
son, the wool trade and the activities of the 
great English trading company of Merchants 
of the Staple; and Thomas Paycocke, the 
cloth industry in East Anglia. They are all 
quite ordinary people and unknown to fame, 
with the exception of Marco Polo. The types 
of historical evidence illustrated are the es- 
tate book of a manorial lord, the chronicle 
treatise on household management, the col- 
lection of family letters and houses, brasses 
and wills. 


[ 93 ] 


CHAPTER IV 
HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


Organized society without home life is as 
unthinkable to-day as the annihilation of 
comradeship. 

The American home is, or should be, the 
unit of which the state is constructed. As 
the home is, so will the state become in this 
and future generations. Concepts of the 
family may change. Marriage laws may con- 
tinue to differ as between various common- 
wealths. 

But we have no reason to expect that we 
can maintain a sound community life with- 
out a wholesome and happy family life. The 
home is a part and a feature of a scheme of 
things, and is no more likely to drop out of 
the human cosmos than is religion or speech. 


THESE emphatic and virile appreciations 
of the home by scientific students of human 
society are much needed to replace the futile 
appeals of soft sentimentality, and pious plati- 
tudes, in behalf of that important social unit. 


[ 94 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


They are needed, too, to counteract the mod- 
ern conditions and forces that are wrecking 
thousands upon thousands of households and 
impairing the effectiveness of many thousands 
more of society’s most vital institutions. 
Numerically the homes of the world are 
far and away more important than any other 
human organization. The United States of 
America, with a population of 110,000,000 in 
1920, had about 25,000,000 homes. In com- 
parison with this impressive figure, the num- 
ber of schools or churches or governments 
or labor-unions or industrial establishments 
seems relatively unimportant. It is most un- 
fortunate that the complexity of modern so- 
ciety has almost compelled the average per- 
son to base his judgment of values upon a 
comparison of single institutions to the neg- 
lect of the total numbers involved. Thus the 
school with its large plant, the church with 
its spires and choirs, the government with its 
congresses and parliaments and armies, in- 
dustry and commerce with their staffs and 
‘machinery, all seem far more impressive than 


[ 95 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


the single home. The modern conception of 
publicity and news, based, as it seems to be, 
on the exaggeration of individual cases and 
organizations, has greatly emphasized this 
unfortunate tendency. Only the dramatiza- 
tion of a Maeterlinck and the statistical sum- 
maries of scientists seem to be able to give an 
adequate presentation of the homes as the 
very basis of human society. 

Functions of the Home.—The home is the 
basic element of the social trinity—home, 
work, and recreation. The functions of the 
household include the preparation for work, 
play, and the general responsibilities of life. 
Normally, a large proportion of life is spent 
within the family circle. During infancy the 
full round of the day is within the home; 
childhood shares the hours among home, 
school, and play; adulthood usually reserves 
a generous third of the twenty-four hours for 
home, sleep, and rest. 

Nurture and Care of Childhood.—The pri- 
mary function of the home is the nurture and 
training of infancy and childhood. This re- 

[ 96 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


sponsibility is alone sufficient to warrant the 
best thought and highest skill of society. 
The striking variations of infant mortality, 
as given in the health chapter, show the 
possibilities of the household at the begin- 
nings of human life. New Zealand with an 
infant mortality of about fifty per thousand 
has evidently attained standards of living 
that are higher than the United States, which 
has a mortality rate of seventy-five. The 
mortality losses of Asiatic peoples are amaz- 
ingly high, while those of Africa are highest 
of all. Though the application of health regu- 
lations is remarkably effective in the reduc- 
tion of these rates, the influence of the home 
is probably most vital of all. Nor is this in- 
fluence limited to the prevention of illness 
and death. The period of infancy and child- 
hood largely determines the degree of physi- 
cal vigor throughout life. The home is there- 
fore the chief agency for the “preservation of 
the species.” 

Development of Individuality—The blood 
‘kinship of the household is the natural soil 
[ 97 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


for the cultivation of the individuality so 
essential to human society. Family traits are 
impressed through example and _ precept. 
Unique qualities of body, mind, and charac- 
ter are not only given time to grow strong in 
a favorable environment, but they are stim- 
ulated and unfortunately sometimes forced 
to the fashion of the family. Whatever the 
losses of this moulding to family type, there 
is the vital gain of differentiations which so- 
ciety requires for its interest and its progress. 
The influences of later life will soon enough 
eliminate family eccentricities and force con- 
formity to the community type. 

Beginnings of Social Exchange.—The re- 
lations and interchanges of the home circle 
are the practice-ground for the opportunities 
and responsibilities of adult society. Under 
the guidance and encouragement of father- 
hood and motherhood, brotherhood and sis- 
terhood are established, which later are 
merged into the relationships of general so- 
ciety. Within the household, youth has an 
opportunity to experience the “give and 

[ 98 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


take” of life, to defend individual rights 
against the selfishness of other members, to 
resign supposed rights discovered to be sel- 
fishness, to be grateful for privileges, to re- 
spect authority and to be obedient to it, to 
be co-operative in spirit and action, and to 
serve and conserve for the common good. 
Would that the family could more generally 
realize its potentialities as the practice- 
ground of social exchanges! Would that the 
qualities of home exchanges could be trans- 
ferred to the processes of general society! 
The humiliations of inequalities and the snob- 
bishness of equalities would become the wel- 
comed differentiations of older and younger 
and the identities of brotherhood and of a 
united household. 

Conditions Disrupting the Home.—Probably 
the most obvious cause of the disregard of 
the home at the present time is the over- 
shadowing influence of larger institutions 
whose individual importance, through size, 
position, or authority, is artificially and un- 
- consciously so exaggerated as to eclipse all 
[ 99 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


smaller institutions, however numerous and 
vital their contribution. The individual 
home cannot compete with the authority of 
government, the moral influence of the 
church, the educational power of the school, 
the economic position of business, and the 
pleasure appeal of the theatre. The ever- 
increasing multiplicity of institutions, or- 
ganizations, associations, companies, clubs, 
and conferences monopolizes the thought and 
time of the individual to the neglect of the 
home, reducing it to a place for sleeping and 
eating. Thus the spell of large institutions 
and the hectic appeals of diverse organiza- 
tions have turned attention and interest 
away from the household. However valua- 
ble and essential their contribution, they 
should not be permitted to disrupt the influ- 
ence of the home. 

Another evident cause of disruption of the 
household is the economic pressure caused 
by the high cost of living and the ever-en- 
larging wants of the individual, some of 
which are due to higher standards of living 

[ 100 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


and others to an insatiable craving to keep 
up appearances and follow the fashion. Mod- 
ern waste, especially American waste and 
extravagance, surpass the power of descrip- 
tion and even imagination. Most unfortu- 
nate of all, thoughtless and useless expendi- 
tures not only mean waste of money and 
resources needed to maintain the home, but 
they entice members of the household away 
to pleasure resorts of a commercial rather 
than a social character. 

The economic independence and changing 
status of women have seriously disturbed the 
organization of the household. There has 
been a revolt against the centuries of female 
subserviency, economic and marital. Man- 
made laws for the control of woman are being 
revoked. Social customs, traditions, and even 
religious sanctions are being critically re- 
examined and often undermined by doubt and 
distrust. The inevitable result of the up- 
heaval is reflected in disruptions of the home. 
Divorces have been increasing at an amazing 
rate, especially in the United States, where 

[ 101 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


the number of divorces has increased from 
one in twenty-five marriages, for 1900, to one 
in five marriages, for 1925. Whatever the 
cause of this dangerous instability, the situa- 
tion calls for serious consideration by all who 
have any conception of the vital position of 
the home in human affairs. 

Influences for Home Improvement.—Fortu- 
nately there are evidences that the acute 
seriousness of the present indifference to the 
home is being recognized. The school, church, 
welfare associations, and government are be- 
ginning to rediscover the essential contribu- 
tion of the home to society. The movement 
is still only in the initial stage, when the 
efforts are confined to tinkering with divorce 
laws or the correctional efforts of juvenile 
courts, together with some supplementary 
trainmg in home-making and parenthood. 
These movements deserve the appreciation 
and support of society for their valuable 
Services. 

But the situation calls for a much more 
fundamental interest on the part of all so- 

[ 102 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


cially minded people. The school programme 
must provide more effective training of youth 
in home responsibilities. The church must 
arouse its membership to a living conscious- 
ness of the place of the home in the “‘scheme 
of things.” Government must realize that 
its safety and progress depend much more on 
normally functioning households than on 
armies or industries, or even on the school 
and the church. Public opinion must be 
aroused to the conviction that the millions of 
homes are more vital to humanity than the 
tens or hundreds or thousands of individually 
larger institutions and organizations. Here is 
a call for scientific interpretation of social 
forces, the marshalling of statistics for gen- 
eral use, and the dissemination of the sci- 
entific truths to those who are responsible 
for the peace and progress of the home. 
History, literature, science, and art can all 
use their respective skills in research and 
interpretation to arouse society to an ade- 
quate appreciation of the household and the 
‘home. 

[ 103 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


Improvement through Training and Labor- 
Saving Machinery.—The earlier recognition 
of home activities took the form of school 
courses in cooking, sewing, and other house- 
hold arts. These courses have been intro- 
duced with increasing frequency until now 
they are fairly general in the best elementary 
and secondary schools of the United States 
and Canada. Such courses are still rather 
infrequent in most European countries. One 
of the most promising movements in behalf 
of home training is that of the home demon- 
stration organized and maintained jointly by 
the United States Department of Agricul- 
ture and State governments. The agents of 
the demonstration plan to visit rural homes 
to encourage and suggest methods and means 
that make for comfort and effectiveness of 
households. Conferences of neighborhood 
householders are organized for the purpose 
of exchanging ideas and experiences, but 
most of all for the cultivation of an interest 
in home work and home life. American 
homes have also materially benefited, with 

[ 104 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


other social institutions, by the inventive 
skill and enterprise which have produced 
labor-saving machinery. It is now possible 
to lighten the load of housework and decrease 
the daily drudgery. 

Government Aid and Regulation.—Acutely 
bad conditions of housing, the increase of 
juvenile offenders and dependency, and the 
frequent disruptions of homes through di- 
vorce have aroused governments to action. 
Among the more successful provisions of 
government are those of the juvenile courts, 
probation officers, and the regulation of hous- 
ing and town-planning. Divorce legislation 
seems still to be in a state of confusion. Eccle- 
siastical authorities emphatically maintain 
that the legalizing of divorce is a major cause 
of family disruption. Whether divorce laws 
are cause or effect, disease or symptom, there 
is no doubt that the government must assist 
vigorously in all possible ways to encourage 
sound home life and an effective household. 

Interrelations of Home and Other Institu- 
tions.—The increasing intimacy of homes 

[ 105 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


with other types of social organizations is a 
hopeful sign. Public and private health 
agencies are centring their activities more 
and more around the home. Recreation as- 
sociations are studying the household to 
ascertain the possibilities of co-operation. In- 
dustrial companies are recognizing the influ- 
ence of the well-conducted home in the main- 
tenance of an efficient labor-supply. Country 
life is directly and intimately dependent upon 
the farm home. Art appreciation and inter- 
est can be originated, stimulated and directed 
with notable results through the household. 
The basic qualities of character root more 
vitally in home life than in any other social 
institution. These interrelations are the es- 
sentials of the lengthened period of infancy, 
childhood, and youth which social science 
asserts to be the basis of the highest culture 
and civilization. 

New Status of Women.—Comparison of the 
status of women in primitive society with 
that of women in the highest stages of civili- 
zation reveals radical differences. Woman as 

[ 106 | 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


a chattel, an economic asset, a producer of 
children, an essential of sensual pleasure, the 
subservient member of the household, to cul- 
tivate the ground, to prepare the food, to 
serve her master—this is the gloomy status 
too general in the primitive community. 
There are striking exceptions to the rule, but 
they are exceptions and not very frequent. 
Through the processes of centuries changes 
have occurred, and women in the world now 
occupy all stages from the lowest to the 
highest. 

The new freedoms of women are remarkable 
in variety and extent. At her best woman is 
probably the most nearly perfect personifi- 
cation of the spiritual in human culture. The 
change in woman’s status, however, has nec- 
essarily disturbed many old relations. The 
period of transition is filled with doubts and 
anxieties. Mistakes are bound to be made. 
False and harmful ambitions have developed. 
Imitation of the ruling male has too fre- 
quently been the aim and guide of the “fe- 
But the process of 
[ 107 ] 


b] 


male of the species.’ 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


adjustment is progressing. Woman will grad- 
ually but certainly find the sphere of service 
suited to her sex and responsibility. That 
sphere will, in all respects, be equal to that 
of man, but it will not be identical. The 
realization of her special capacities—physical, 
mental, and spiritual—will add vitally to the 
development of civilization, but nowhere 
more than in the fulfilment of the functions 
of the household and the home. 


SURVEY OF HOMES AND HOUSEHOLDS 


The survey of the neighborhood homes 
has all the advantages and disadvantages of 
dealing with the more intimate affairs of 
community life. The well-known right of 
family freedom from outside intrusion should 
be respected. All possible care should be 
observed to avoid the appearance of idle 
curiosity through individual inquiry. The 
more complete recognition of the home in 
the community will doubtless result in a 
better knowledge of its conditions and proc- 
esses, thus largely eliminating the need of in- 

[ 108 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


quiry by individual teachers. However, no 
amount of formally assembled facts should 
free the teachers from an attitude of genuine 
inquiry as to the household and its needs. 
The interest should always be sufficient to 
stimulate personal observation of the home 
so far as it is possible. Teachers-and pupils 
must supplement, by their own efforts and 
contacts, the facts supplied to them by 
others. 

The topics of inquiry and questions here- 
with presented are based on the discussion 
of the household in preceding paragraphs. 
They must be modified to suit the community 
in which the survey is made. It is obvious 
that the simpler communities will not require 
the numerous items suggested; other neigh- 
borhoods may be so elaborate as to demand 
a more detailed analysis. The vital fact as 
regards the survey is not a system of ques- 
tions nor an array of facts, but an attitude 
of genuine research toward the home and its 
welfare. The topics and questions suggested 
are as follows: 


[ 109 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


Homes or Households.—How many >? Num- 
ber of persons in them? Average member- 
ship of each household > How many fathers 
in all households? mothers? children of 
school age? children below school age? 
above school age? How many widowed 
parents? divorced? How many relatives 
other than parents and children? How many 
males in all households ? How many females ? 

Economic Condition of the Households.— 
How many wage-earners? Estimate of 
amount earned? Home owned or rented? 
What insurance or savings for illness or old 
age? What proportion of income spent on 
food? clothing? rent? education? recrea- 
tion ? 

Housing.—Obtain facts to show suitability 
of house or apartment as regards size, air, 
light, health, privacy, recreation, and ap- 
pearance. 

Home Provisions.—What are the provi- 
sions for cooking, sewing, sleeping, washing, 
and bathing? for kitchen-garden, flower- 
garden, and poultry-raising? for reading, 
music, art, and recreation 

Household Functions——(1) Nurture and 
care of early childhood: How successful has 
the household been in rearing children > What 
proportion of the children born are alive? 
What is the status of their health and vigor > 


[ 110 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


(2) What are the habits and regulations as 
regards hours of sleep, time of meals, recrea- 
tion, religious exercises, and co-operation in 
household activities? (3) What proportion 
of the daily twenty-four hours is spent in 
the home? What part of the home time is 
spent in sleeping, eating, and home recrea- 
tion? (4) Describe home relations of par- 
ents and children that assist in development 
of individuality. (5) Describe the household 
activities that give experience in social ex- 
changes of work, play, discussion, responsi- 
bility, co-operation, and service. 

Conditions Disrupting the Household.—(1) 
Eclipse of home by other institutions: What 
other institutions and- organizations in the 
community are individually larger than the 
individual home? How many of them? 
Compare the space and attention given to 
them in newspapers and public discussion as 
compared with references to the home. Com- 
pare the number and membership of all the 
households with the number and membership 
or attendance of schools; of churches; of 
amusement places; of government. offices; 
of industrial plants. (2) What evidence is 
there of financial limitations and distress in 
the maintenance of homes? How much of 
this distress is due to high prices? to higher 
standards? to extravagance in clothing, 


AS Gh a 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


housing, automobile, or expensive and un- 
wise amusements? (3) How many women 
are financially self-supporting? How many 
of them are married women? What evidence 
is there of home neglect owing to the outside 
employment of the mother? (4) How many 
marriages during the current year? How 
many divorces? What causes are reported 
for divorces ? 

Influences for Home Improvement.—Is there 
any evidence of reviving interest in homes? 
What instruction and training in household 
arts are offered by the schools or govern- 
ment departments? How generally is labor- 
saving machinery introduced into the home ? 
What action is taken by government for the 
correction of household disruption» Are there 
juvenile courts? probation officers? Is there 
adequate housing provision? town-plan- 
ning? Do adequate commuting facilities 
exist from city work to homes in suburban 
district? What co-operation exists between 
the homes and organizations such as health 
associations, industrial establishments, rec- 
reation committees, churches, and schools? 
What influence has the women’s vote on pub- 
lic provision for the home? What is the in- 
fluence of divorce laws? 


[ 112 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


EDUCATION AND THE HOUSEHOLD 


Consciousness of the home and the house- 
hold is the fundamental factor in any plans 
for overcoming the forces that tend to dis- 
rupt the home and also for strengthening the 
movements for the improvement of the house- 
hold. All the influence of education from the 
elementary school to the highest levels of the 
educational system should be enlisted in this 
important undertaking. The four elements 
of the school organization that should be 
adapted to this end are as follows: 

1. The school staff should be informed as 
to the economic and sociological importance 
of the household in human affairs. The re- 
sults of the survey should be familiar to 
those who determine educational policies as 
well as to those who teach. Those in charge 
of education should be so conscious of the 
community homes and their potentialities as 
to use every possible educational opportunity 
to assist the households to the highest stand- 
ards of effectiveness. 

[ 113 J 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


2. The architectural plans of school build- 
ings and the organization and administra- 
tion of educational activities should provide 
adequately for imparting knowledge and 
training related to home life. Dormitories 
and hostels and the arrangements for sleep- 
ing, eating, and social exchanges furnish many 
opportunities for cultivation of habits and 
ideals essential to the home. 

3. The school curriculum should provide 
the usual instruction and training in home 
economics and household arts for the girls, 
and related instruction suited to the interests 
and responsibilities of the boys. The latter 
will probably be primarily concerned in the 
construction of the house, the layout of gar- 
dens and lawns, the provisions for games and 
other recreations. Both boys and girls will 
be interested in the discussion of home func- 
tions relating to the health, the development 
of individuality, and the beginnings of co- 
operation and social exchanges. The more 
abstract considerations are sufficiently diffi- 
cult of comprehension to warrant special 

[114 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


courses for the most advanced college stu- 
dents. Extension education through home 
demonstrations in the neighborhood, similar 
to those maintained by the United States 
Department of Agriculture, are worthy of 
consideration as parts of the educational 
programme. The increasing expenditures of 
governments and schools in various forms of 
home demonstration are creating a demand 
for students with special training for such 
work. 

4. In a sense the whole school should be 
regarded as an expression of home life. The 
household and the school family have many 
activities that are parallel in aim. Among 
these are the opportunities for all forms of 
co-operation; the necessity for authority, dis- 
cipline, and obedience; the adjustment of 
youth with its spirit of adventure and age 
with the caution of experience and wider 
knowledge; acquaintance with the utilities 
and beauty of the environment, both material 
and human; and the cultivation of a spirit 
of service to all. 

[ 115 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


Such activities and relationships in the 
school should be encouraged not only for their 
immediate gains to the school family, but 
also for their influence, both present and 
future, on the homes and households of the 
nation. It is essential, therefore, that these 
activities should be definitely related in the 
mind of the student to the functions and re- 
sponsibilities of the home. The present ten- 
dency to overlook the vital values of the 
household is partly traceable to the belief 
that they are to be replaced by institutional 
provisions of a more effective character. 
The truth, which should be emphatically im- 
pressed by school processes, is that the ac- 
tivities of homes and other organizations 
should be supplementary and mutually help- 
ful for common ends. 

Most important of all is it that education 
for home and household should not be as- 
signed exclusively to special courses or de- 
partments. Every educational stage has 
some contribution to the knowledge and 
training required for home life. The follow- 

[ 116 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


ing suggestions are offered for the considera- 
tion of those who are directing the various 
divisions of the school system. 

Elementary School.—The lowest elementary 
grades or standards should very naturally 
merge with the home life from which the 
children have come to share their time among 
home and school and play. Numbering, read- 
ing, writing, and handicraft work will carry 
on the household interests and gradually add 
the exterior contacts of school and neigh- 
borhood. If these processes are conducted 
not merely as a means of learning the three 
R’s, but also for the genuine interest of the 
home, the elementary classes will establish 
a principle of education that is worthy of 
imitation through secondary and college 
period. 

The exchanges and interactions of home 
and elementary school can be most intimate 
and real with very great advantages to both. 
The more formal relation of teacher and 
school to the pupil can dignify and systema- 
tize the more commonplace and intimate in- 
[117 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


fluence of the home over the youth. Parental 
advice buttressed by the official approval of 
the teacher is usually adopted with an en- 
thusiasm sometimes impossible to the work of 
the parent alone. It is, therefore, urged that 
the school shall make every possible provision 
for co-operation with the home as regards the 
simple but vital functions of eating, sleeping, 
recreation, health, gardening, and other 
household activities. Progressive schools have 
already established such a policy and devised 
methods that should be known by all schools. 
The ingenious teacher can make the modifica- 
tions required to suit the problems and activi- 
ties to the advancing age and capacities of the 
pupils. 

Secondary School.—Consciousness of com- 
munity homes and their needs requires much 
more of the secondary schools than the in- 
struction and training offered by such courses 
as household arts, home economics, and do- 
mestic science. The survey outlined in pre- 
ceding paragraphs presents fields of knowl- 
edge relating to the household that include 

[ 118 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


physical science, social science, history, lit- 
erature, and statistics. Each of these subjects 
will from time to time have opportunities to 
explain the social functions of the home; the 
problems of adjusting the household to chang- 
ing conditions; its historical development; the 
forces now strengthening its position in so- 
ciety; comparison of the urban and rural 
homes; the interrelations of home with health 
movements, recreational clubs, industrial 
companies, labor-unions, and churches. The 
study of such topics in secondary classes 
must, of course, be limited to the most ele- 
mentary phases. \ 

College Education—The social problems 
and conditions, mentioned as the responsi- 
bility of secondary schools for household and 
home, are sufficiently important and difficult 
to occupy the best research talents in college 
faculties. There are questions of housing and 
sanitation which combine problems of home 
and health; standards of living involving eco- 
nomics and sociology; home development of 
- individuality and the beginnings of socializa- 
[ 119 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


tion requiring the help of psychology and so- 
ciology; marriage and divorce which awaken 
the eloquence of reformers and the emphatic 
denunciation of ecclesiastical authority, and 
stimulate the honest student to earnest re- 
search. Literature and art are full of the trag- 
edies and inspirations of love—maternal, 
fraternal, and sometimes even paternal. At 
any rate there is ample material for research 
so that the merely sentimental may be over- 
looked in the search for the real contributions 
of the family, household, and home to human 
development. 

University Education—Even the special- 
ists of the universities may well consider the 
relations of their intensive studies to the 
home and the family. Most of the profes- 
sions have occasion to relate their skills to the 
home. The medical profession is certainly 
concerned in more than the individual. The 
elimination of disease involves human beings 
in relation to each other. Law has always 
been compelled to consider blood kinship and 
the contractual relationships of the family and 

[ 120 ] 


HOME AND HOUSEHOLD 


homestead. Similarly specialists in govern- 
ment, architecture, economics, sociology, agri- 
culture, and religion will find problems of the 
family crossing their fields of research and 
revealing forces that help or hinder the main- 
tenance and development of the home. 


[Shy] 


CHAPTER V 


RECREATION — PHYSICAL, INTEL- 
LECTUAL, AND SPIRITUAL 


RECREATION and culture include a wide 
variety of human interests from physical 
games to the highest ranges of the intellec- 
tual and the spiritual in art, music, litera- 
ture, and religion. Health, described as the 
first element of community, includes the 
struggle for physical existence in primitive 
society and the realization of the higher po- 
tentialities of the physique in civilized so- 
ciety. Use and appreciation of the environ- 
ment, the second community element, is the 
search for food, clothing, and security from 
hostile neighbors in the tribal stage; the or- 
ganized use of resources and co-operative re- 
lations with social groups in modern society. 
Household and home, the third element in 
community, are the nursing and feeding cen- 

[ 122 ] 


RECREATION 


tres of barbarism and the agencies for culti- 
vating family traits and conserving individ- 
uality essential to civilization. 

Recreation and culture, the fourth com- 
munity element, completes the round of hu- 
man interests, whether in the ceremonial 
_ games and spontaneous play of primitive peo- 
ple, the universal play instinct of children and 
adults, the extensive and highly organized 
amusements and diversions of modern so- 
ciety, the museums of art and the academies 
of music, or the authority and inspirations 
of religious faith and sanctions. Recreation, 
thus defined, is the instinct of the barbarian 
to break away from the mere search for food 
and the satisfaction of existence wants in 
order to feel the freedom of play and the com- 
fort and joy of imagined or real contacts with 
power, grandeur, or beauty. It is the same 
instinct in civilized man that impels him to 
expend immense amounts of money, energy, 
and thought on various forms of recreation, 
whether physical, mental, or spiritual. In 
. this comprehensive sense recreation includes 


[hes FI 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


the mental, moral, and spiritual development 
of the individual and the community and 
thus realizes the ideal of re-creation. 

The very unfortunate conception of recrea- 
tion as merely amusement and useless play 
is largely responsible for the failure to recog- 
nize its vital potentialities to humanity. 
Even more unfortunate is the customary 
division of recreational functions into hard- 
and-fast compartmental divisions such as 
physical culture, mental development, moral 
training, and religious life. In accordance with 
this artificial classification, amusements have 
been largely left to mercenary interests; the 
games and play of childhood and youth to 
the opportunities which accident or chance 
may happen to provide; physical culture to 
private or commercial initiative, and some- 
times to philanthropy or the public school; 
mental development to the school system; 
moral and religious training to the churches. 

Fortunately a truer conception of the indi- 
vidual and the community is increasingly re- 
vealing the essential unity of all life. The 

[ 124 ] 


RECREATION 


play instinct, formerly thought by some to 
be the foolishness of youth, or a persistent 
form of “original sin,” is now regarded as in 
a large measure natural, desirable, and essen- 
tial. Students of criminology are learning 
that much of the correctional work of prisons 
could be avoided by proper provision for 
play. Hygienists are recommending play and 
amusements for the building up of the body. 
Psychologists suggest various forms of play 
for the quickening of mental processes. Di- 
rectors of community welfare depend largely 
upon the playground, musical organizations, 
and games, both indoor and outdoor, for the 
cultivation of morale. This is strikingly true 
in times of stress and excitement, when the 
community life must be lifted to high levels 
of thought and action. 

Even these varied activities do not, how- 
ever, include the full round of recreational 
influences for the mental, moral, and spiri- 
tual development of humanity. Joseph Lee, 
widely honored for his successful advocacy 
of community service, points eloquently to 

[ 125 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


these larger influences in the following mes- 
sage to the American people: 


The causes of unrest are not economic, but 
spiritual; not physical, but moral. What we 
are witnessing is the revolt of men who see 
life passing away without their ever having 
lived, who face the prospect of carrying their 
ideals and their aspirations unfulfilled and 
unspoken to the grave. 

Man under our industrial system—an artist 
given no opportunity for expression, an in- 
ventor employed as an automaton, a thinker 
tied to a fool-proof machine—is the victim 
of disappointed instinct, subject, accordingly, 
to all kinds of nervous and emotional dis- 
turbance. It is not personal indulgence, but 
spiritual ideals he is called upon to sacrifice; 
not his physical comfort, but his life. 

The radical remedy for this condition, if 
it is ever found, will be in making industry 
once more expressive of man’s constituting 
instincts, of the lines of life to which he is by 
nature irretrievably committed. Blessed be 
those prophets of the future who shall some 
day awaken us to the truth that itis chiefly 
in our work that we must live, and shall 
arouse us to acting upon that truth. 


Such a vital objective requires not only 
the effective use of leisure time for the men- 
( 126 ] 


RECREATION 


tal and spiritual development of society; it 
requires also the humanizing of all activities 
for the same lofty purpose. Work, play, art, 
education, and religion should all share the 
opportunity and the responsibility of quick- 
ening the mind and enriching the spiritual 
appreciations of individual and community. 
The compartmental conception of recrea- 
tion, which conceives it merely as a separate 
act, is thus seen to be a serious limitation of 
its potentialities. The artificial separation of 
the processes of character development from 
the other activities of education and life is 
equally ineffective. Training for social ser- 
vice, cultivation of mental and character 
traits, and recreation should not be limited 
to special hours, special departments, special 
experts, or special organizations, whether 
public or private. All such special provisions 
may be desirable and even necessary from an 
administrative point of view, but they should 
not be permitted to limit these most im- 
portant of all educational objectives to the 
exclusive care of any one department, per- 
son, or association. This conviction was 
[ 127 ] ! 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


confirmed, though possibly with too much 
finality, by the late President Wilson in the 
statement that “conscious cultivation of 
character produces nothing but that which 
makes a man intolerable to his fellows, for . 
character is usually a by-product.” The case 
for the general and personal influences is well 
stated by Professor Richardson, of Dart- 
mouth College:* 


Fortunately the influence of high character 
is contagious. There are men who from the 
force and sweetness of their personality and 
the loftiness of their outlook are radiating 
centres of goodness to all about. Most men 
in their younger years have come into con- 
tact with such _personalities—personalities 
whose moral influence has been a lasting one 
on those with whom they have come in con- 
tact. The appeal of these men, exercised as 
it often is year after year upon the hundreds 
of men who pass through the college, is a 
power which only those who have experienced 
it can appreciate. Unfortunately, men who 
have the power to influence masses are not 
common, but all institutions have connected 
with them as teachers, administrators, or un- 

* “* Study of the Liberal College,” p. 220. 


[ 128 ] 


RECREATION 


dergraduates, men who in their own way and 
in their own degree possess some measure of 
it. They are the invaluable members of the 
college community; to be kept in the circle 
at all cost, for through them alone can the 
influence of high ideals and high character be 
transmitted. 

The processes of mental and character de- 
velopment are in so many respects identical 
with those of recreation as to warrant the 
acceptance of Professor Richardson’s state- 
ment as applicable in this discussion. There 
is evidently a wide diversity of opinion as to 
the methods of character development as 
well as those of recreation. It is reassuring 
to know that there is distinguished authority 
for methods requiring special provisions as 
well as for those which depend upon personal 
influence or the humanizing of work and of 
other activities. Sound procedure probably 
requires the adoption of those elements of 
recreation that can be adapted to the com- 
munity. Recreation, in the comprehensive 
sense, should be removed from the realm of 
~ accidental arrangement, and based definitely 


[ 129 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


on the concrete conditions and daily experi- 
ences of life. 

In this task it is suggested that conscious- 
ness of community needs may be a determin- 
ing factor. Such a consciousness should re- 
veal the physical defects and weaknesses to 
be corrected by the recreations of athletics 
and games, both indoors and outdoors; the 
mental faculties, dulled by the narrow rou- 
tine of machine labor, to be stimulated and 
guided to broader knowledge and keener in- 
sight; character traits rendered abnormal and 
possibly dangerous by the irritations and 
strains of daily contacts to be made normal 
and socially sound; esthetic appreciations, 
undeveloped or retarded by vulgarity and 
ugliness, to be encouraged by the beautiful 
in music, form, and color; and, most impor- 
tant of all, spiritual vision, both social and 
religious, to feel the touch of all humanity 
and faith in the divinity that rules and guides 
us all. 

This conception of recreation and culture 
places the fourth element of community life 

[ 130 ] 


RECREATION 


far beyond that of mere amusement to be 
arranged by the mercenary interest of eco- 
nomic agencies, or a compartmental activity 
to be provided by the chance interest of a 
philanthropic or religious association, or even 
the beneficent influences of rare personalities 
whose presence In any community is too 
largely a matter of chance. In view of the 
importance of recreation, as thus defined, it 
is surprising that principles and methods of 
recreation are still unformed. Some, con- 
scious only of the amusement values, have 
overlooked the necessity for scientific and 
carefully considered approach; others, real- 
izing the complicated, indefinite, and univer- 
sal implications involved, have feared to un- 
dertake the responsibility. 

The essential quality of the approach to 
recreation is the same as in that to the other 
elements of community, namely, that it shall 
be sufficiently simple to be practicable and 
sufficiently fundamental to be correct. Such 
an approach includes, first, the main facts 
concerning recreation in general; second, a 

[ 131 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


survey of recreation needs and _ activities 
in local communities; third, the application 
of educational influences based upon the 
survey. 

Agencies of Recreation.—The chief agencies 
of recreation in the United States are: first, 
the homes, numbering about 25,000,000, and 
including practically all the people of the 
nation; second, the schools, about 270,000 
in number, with an enrolment of more than 
26,000,000 pupils, maintained at an annual 
cost of two billions of dollars; third, the 
churches, numbering about 238,000, with a 
membership of almost 50,000,000 persons 
and an annual contribution of $548,000,000; 
fourth, public recreation centres such as 
playgrounds, swimming-pools, parks, libra- 
ries, lectures, museums of art and of nat- 
ural history; fifth, philanthropic organizations 
such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Camp 
Fire Girls, Young Men’s Christian Associa- 
tion, Young Women’s Christian Association, 
Knights of Columbus, Young Men’s Hebrew 
Association; sixth, fraternal societies and 

[ 182 ] 


RECREATION 


private clubs; seventh, commercial amuse- 
ments, next in cost and magnitude to the 
total cost of schools and churches. 

The Home and the Household——The home 
is accorded first place as an agency of recrea- 
tion chiefly because it is the most universal 
of all social institutions and includes prac- 
tically all the people of the country. While 
the activities of the households have always 
included recreations of various types, from 
the spontaneous play of the children to the 
daily religious devotions, it seems probable 
that recreation has not been sufficiently recog- 
nized as a responsibility of the home. AI- 
most every home function has an intimate 
relationship to the pleasure-needs and full 
development of the household. Food, sleep, 
rest, and play, which are the major interests 
of the household are all directly recreative. 
In pioneer periods and in rural districts the 
homes were relatively much more the centres 
of social life than they are now under urban 
conditions, when family life is so overshad- 
owed by public play and commercialized 

[ 133 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


amusements. However valuable and impor- 
tant the contributions of public amusements 
and recreation, the disregard of the recreative 
possibilities of 25,000,000 homes, with their 
definite relationship to practically all the 
people, would be a monumental blunder. 
The School Sysltem.—Next to the homes, 
the most universal institutions are the schools, 
of which there are over a quarter of a million 
in the United States. Their annual cost sur- 
passes that of the other types of institutions 
concerned in recreation except the homes, 
whose total expenses cannot be estimated. 
The school’s right to second place in its con- 
tributions to recreation is based not only on 
its wide distribution and large expenditures 
but also on the directness with which it in- 
fluences mental development and character. 
Important as the school’s contribution in this 
respect has been in the past, its possibilities 
for the future are far greater. As education 
is determined by a consciousness of commu- 
nity needs, including the needed re-creations 
required in body, mind, and spirit, the schools 
[ 134 ] 


RECREATION 


will become the most effective public agen- 
cies of recreation, not only through their own 
direct contribution but also through their in- 
direct influence on other institutions, even 
stimulating the homes to a better under- 
standing of their responsibility for play and 
other recreative needs of the household. 
These extensions of school influence are de- 
scribed in the last section of this chapter. 
Churches and Related Institutions.—The in- 
spirational influence of religion is one of the 
most potent recreative forces in society. 
While the avowed aim of churches is the 
propagation of religion—too often a rather 
dogmatic interpretation of ecclesiastical be- 
lief—the actual influence of the churches ex- 
tends far beyond religious propaganda. The 
possibility of further application of religious 
faith to community life is far greater than is 
now realized. Even on the present rather nar- 
row basis, the contribution of almost a quar- 
ter of a million churches, with a membership 
of almost 50,000,000 people, but little less 
than half the national population, deserves 
[ 135 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


to be ranked very high among the agencies 
of re-creation. Broadened and stimulated by 
a living consciousness of community -needs, 
the churches should extend their exhorta- 
tions and inspirations to the common needs 
of the masses as well as to the classes of 
society. 

Public Recreation Centres ——The interest of 
municipal and other governmental organiza- 
tions in recreation has increased with remark- 
able rapidity within the last few years. The 
following facts are presented in the 1924 re- 
port of the “Playground and Recreation 
Association of America,” whose work is both 
a remarkable contribution to the cause and a 
striking evidence of the deepening interest 
in the subject: 


The first quarter of this century will go 
down in history not only for its spectacular 
discoveries, but for the speed with which 
theory has been turned into practice in our 
civic life. Municipal provision for the peo- 
ple’s play—an idea new to America—has in 
these few years found acceptance and ex- 
pansion. Directed public recreation is adapt- 


[ 136 ] 


RECREATION 


ing the old, fundamental instinct of play to 
the changing current of modern life. 

In 1900 fourteen pioneer cities were beat- 
ing paths in a wilderness of municipal sen- 
timent and procedure. Only fifteen years 
before, America’s first public play-place—a 
Boston “sand garden”? had appeared. By 
1906, the year the “Playground and Recrea- 
tion Association of America’’ was organized, 
forty-one cities had directed playgrounds. 
Now nearly seven hundred cities report that 
they maintain public playgrounds and recrea- 
tion centres under leadership. 

The covered-wagon days have passed and 
the foundations have been laid. The struc- 
ture of America’s public recreation is build- 
ing solidly ahead, as a city might, from the 
Main Street of children’s playgrounds and 
organized athletics to the outlying districts 
of community music, drama, and art. The 
year 1925 finds a city’s provision for public 
recreation a foremost measuring-rod of its 
progress. It finds recreation facilities also 
largely determining what the president of 
the McCall Publishing Company, recently 
locating a new plant in Dayton, Ohio, called 
the “‘livableness”’ of the city. 

The last year in community recreation has 
been something in the nature of a turning- 
point. The movement reached a place where 


Polar 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


it could look backward, take stock of itself, 
and consider the expansion that lies ahead. 
During 1924 the national government has 
for the first time taken an active stand in 
promoting recreation. The number of State 
governments adopting and modernizing rec- 
reation laws has appreciably swelled. 


To this summary of recent progress should 
be added other public recreational organiza- 
tions that have long been in vogue. They are 
libraries, parks, zoological and_ botanical 
gardens, art-galleries, museums of natural 
history. These too have shared in the larger 
appropriations made by governments and 
philanthropy. A statement of the capital in- 
vested and of the annual expenditures would 
be exceedingly impressive. 

Philanthropic Recreation Organizations.— 
The increasing number of recreation move- 
ments, organized and maintained by phil- 
anthropic, religious, and private organiza- 
tions, is substantial proof of the determination 
of civilized communities to correct the un- 
fortunate effects of machine labor and the 
artificialities of modern society, especially 


[ 138 ] 


RECREATION 


those of urban neighborhoods. The follow- 
ing quotations from an excellent book, “‘The 
Theory of Organized Play,” classify these 
organizations and summarize their activities: 


Semi-Public Promotion.—This type of pro- 
‘ motion includes all clubs and organizations 
having an interest in play from the stand- 
point of the participation and benefit of its 
members. Such clubs usually have a mem- 
bership fee, which must be paid before the 
privileges are extended. On certain occasions 
admission is charged, but the purpose of the 
commercial profit is a worth-while one. The 
money taken in does not go to individual 
gain; instead, these fees are used for the up- 
keep of fields or halls, rental or equipment, 
and the payment of the janitor or caretaker; 
or, in case of dramatics and music, they may 
be used to pay lecturers, dramatic artists, or 
musicians. 

Open Groups.—Under the caption of open 
groups we must include the Boy Scouts, Girl 
Scouts, Campfire Girls, summer camps, 
Young Men’s Christian Association, Young 
Women’s Christian Association, churches, 
settlements, industrial organizations, certain 
athletic and social clubs, and miscellaneous 
organizations where play is incidental. The 


[ 139 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


Boy Scouts, Camp Fire Girls, Girl Scouts, 
and summer camps are recent outgrowths of 
the play movement whose programmes stress 
the objectives of character-building and citi- 
zenship, and thereby give a valuable supple- 
ment to our school training. 

Exclusive Clubs —The membership of the 
organizations referred to as exclusive is lim- 
ited to a considerable degree, eligibility for 
the most part being determined by wealth 
or social influence, and often being dependent 
on the sanction of the active members. This 
group at large includes our select civic or- 
ganizations such as the Rotary Club, Ex- 
change, and Kiwanis; the fraternal societies, 
such as Masons, Elks, Knights of Pythias, 
Knights of Columbus, Odd Fellows, and 
school fraternities, for the men, and corre- 
sponding secret organizations such as Eastern 
Star, Maccabees, etc., for the women; pri- 
vate schools that limit their enrolment and 
have a long waiting list; and, lastly, the many 
exclusive city and country clubs. 

Informal Games and Play.—The type of 
promotion referred to here is that of self- 
promotion. Its scope includes all the forms 
of play that are planned by single individuals 
or small groups without a definite organiza- 
tion. There are always enthusiasts, singly or 
in company, for such outdoor recreations as 
hiking, swimming, fishing, hunting, canoe- 


[ 140 ] 


RECREATION 


ing, skating, touring, camping, picnics, and 
informal or “scrub’’ games; and, similarly, 
for such indoor play as reading, cards, check- 
ers, chess, and music. Then there are con- 
genial groups which will come together of 
their own accord for dances, lawn socials, 
card-parties, or parlor games. In a sense, 
children’s play at home and in the streets is 
of this type; it is characterized by lack of 
permanency and direction. 

Commercial Amusements.—The lavish ex- 
penditures of all nations on commercial 
amusements should command the serious 
consideration of those who are interested in 
human welfare. The extravagance is un- 
doubtedly more excessive in America than 
elsewhere. Even prohibition of alcoholic 
beverages has not greatly reduced our large 
bills for luxuries. The book mentioned above 
cites the following expenditures based on 
revenue and sales tax for 1921: 


TYPE OF PLEASURE AMOUNT SPENT 

Movies, theatres, music.......... $1,121,000,000 
AULOMODLIES OU et ki. wenn merrily 2,435,700,000 
Chewing Pum et ae ee ke ahs tte 51,000,000 

’’ Candy and soft drinks........... 901,000,000 
POUAPCOR IE CoC Ae nek id ed Sa 1,696,600,000 
Recreation (public expense)...... 8,858,716 


[ 141 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


The comments of these authoritative stu- 
dents of recreations further reveal the vast 
proportions of commercial amusements. Ac- 
cording to their reliable estimates, ‘“‘the mo- 
tion-picture enterprise is the fifth largest 
industry in the United States from the stand- 
point of financial investment. With costs of 
theatres, pool-rooms, dance-halls, race-tracks, 
cabarets, baseball parks, pleasure parks, the 
total expenditures are greater than those of 
any industry in America—greater than those 
for wheat, ore, or fuel.” These authorities 


add: 


Commercial enterprises, always seeking big 
dividends, really anticipated and gave oppor- 
tunity for play before the public was stirred 
into making appropriations for this purpose. 
In this respect commercialized play has had 
a great opportunity; but it has largely failed. 
It has considered profit first of all, and in 
catering to the spirit of the modern genera- 
tion it has fostered amusements that are use- 
less and vicious. It has specialized in organ- 
ized thrills that unduly excite the nervous 
temperament. Too frequently, as in the cases 


[ 142 ] 


RECREATION 


of our movies and professional athletics, the 
people pay to see the others perform, and 
themselves assume the passive role of on- 
lookers. Almost in every instance the public 
has been exploited in the sense that exorbi- 
tant prices have been charged in order that 
the promoters might amass huge fortunes. 
Commercialized forms of play are both 
good and bad; and, moreover, many of them 
that are now distinctly evil influences can be 
converted into useful artistic forms of play. 
There is no question but that the theatre, 
music-halls, and the movies can all be moulded 
from the standpoints of art, education, and 
recreation; and many amusements, like pool 
and billiards, now frowned upon, can be 
made very desirable simply by improving 
their environment. Gambling-dens, opium- 
joints, low resorts, and like places of vicious 
surroundings, however, have no worth-while 
function in our civilization, and should be 
wiped out entirely. These latter influences 
have helped to mar and prostitute many legit- 
imate forms of amusement. A _ significant 
point of commercialized play is that people 
will pay fancy prices to be amused or for a 
chance to play. Also, its very extensiveness 
shows that the playgrounds and other mu- 
nicipal provisions are still inadequate; and 
that until the demands are met, there will 


[ 143 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


always be undesirable forms of commercial 
amusement. 


Types and Objectives of Recreation.—The 
vital and varied values of recreation have 
been mentioned. The following summary 
classifies the amusements, games, diversions, 
avocations, mental and inspirational activ- 
ities in relation to the recreational ends 
achieved. The classification is intentionally 
limited to the more important forms of 
recreation, and is intended only to illustrate 
the diversity both of means and objectives. 
The chief influences of recreation may be 
classified as relating to physique and health, 
mental poise and alertness, moral attitudes 
and sound character, appreciation of the 
beautiful and the good in nature and hu- 
manity, and a spirit of service. It is impor- 
tant to note that the influence of any recrea- 
tional means, such as athletic games, is not 
limited to any one objective. Outdoor and 
indoor games, for example, may re-create not 
only the physique but also the mind and the 

[ 144 ] 


RECREATION 


character. They may also strengthen social 
ties, awaken a love of nature, and deepen 
spiritual interests. 

Physical Culture-——While physical culture 
is the special field of all kinds of athletic 
games, numerous avocations, and even vo- 
cations, may be so used as to contribute sub- 
stantially to the all-round development of 
the body. Possibly the most essential condi- 
tion of success in physical recreation is the 
determination to participate actively in some 
form of physical exercises. The present ten- 
dency to be passive cnlookers at games and 
sports is a real menace to civilization. The 
case for the “daily dozen” aptly states the 
argument for any system of genuine exer- 
cise: “If you set out to do the daily dozen, 
be sure it is the daily dozen you do!” 

Mental Development.—All education is, of 
course, concerned with mental re-creations. 
But the means of intellectual direction and 
stimulation may include all the diverse 
means of recreation. Libraries and museums 
of art, natural history, and science; books, 

[ 145 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


magazines, and newspapers; lectures and 
study clubs; motion pictures and radio; travel 
and conversation—the list is too long to 
complete. 

Moral Attitudes and Character—The re- 
creation of moral attitudes may be as ex- 
tensive as the daily life and community in- 
terests. Church and school, field and shop, 
home and household, gymnasium and camp, 
theatre and museum—what a wealth of op- 
portunity and responsibility for moral recrea- 
tion ! 

Appreciation of Nature and Natural Re- 
sources.—Acquaintance with nature and natu- 
ral resources is probably the most certain 
corrective for the artificialities which modern 
machinery and organization are multiplying 
to hide the realities of the universe. Culti- 
vation of flower-gardens is no mere amuse- 
ment; the value of the vegetable-garden and 
domestic animals is by no means limited to 
that of an economic convenience; the obser- 
vation of soils, rocks, trees, butterflies, and 
birds is no passing fancy. Through such 

[ 146 ] 


RECREATION 


recreations are the wonders of the world 
revealed to those who would otherwise be 
stifled by the confusing rush and noise of 
modern towns and cities. 

Appreciation of Modern Inventions.—The 
miracles of modern invention in mechanics 
and discoveries in physical science have 
recreational values that should be widely 
used. The indifference and selfishness with 
which the new powers and increased com- 
forts are accepted by society should be cor- 
rected by study and understanding. Avoca- 
tional interest in experimentation and manual 
arts is one form of recreational activity that 
would contribute to such a _ knowledge. 
Manual avocations of value include those re- 
lated to construction with wood or any con- 
venient material, electrical machinery, paint- 
ing and decorating. Of equal or greater value 
to the women are recreations in household 
and family arts such as cooking, sewing, 
knitting and care of children. These occupa- 
tions would be more novel to many women 
in modern society than grand opera or inter- 

[147 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


national travel. Their recreational contri- 
butions to womanhood would doubtless be 
surprisingly great. 

Appreciation of Art.—The inspirations of 
art are needed by all the people. The inter- 
pretations of life and nature by the masters 
in painting, music, sculpture, architecture, 
and literature are among the master forces 
for re-creating minds dulled or closed by 
daily drudgery. The people should have an 
opportunity to be thrilled by symphonies, 
oratorios, and operas; to be awed into grate- 
ful appreciation by the great Madonnas 
and motherhoods of the ages; to be inspired 
by the sculptured presentations of human- 
ity. 

Inspirations of Ideals and Religious Faith. 
—However widely the wise, the mediocre, 
and the foolish may differ as to the inspira- 
tions of ennobling ideals and religious faith, 
all must agree that inspirations and visions 
and faiths have always, and will always, con- 
tinue to be essential to humanity. The in- 
spirations of poetic visions, as in the follow- 

[ 148 ] 


RECREATION 


ing stanzas, are often almost identical with 
those of religious faith: 


O lifted eye o’erlooking earth, 

O lifted heart that grasps the sky, 
Thine is the gift of highest birth, 
Thine the fast hold of things on high. 
To Thee the things of Time unseen, 
The eternal vision shines serene. 


Or the lines of the English poet, Francis 
Thompson: 


O world invisible, we view thee; 

O world intangible, we touch thee; 
O world unknowable, we know thee; 
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee! 


Yea, in the night, my soul, my daughter, 
Cry—clinging heaven by the hems; 

And lo, Christ walking on the water, 
Not of Gennesaret, but the Thames. 


The place of religion in the re-creation of 
individual and community is real. A living 
regard for the unseen and spiritual forces 
seems essential to the fulness of life. This 
conviction is strikingly supported by Mr. 
‘Bernard Shaw in the statement that “If 
[ 149 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


religion did not actually exist, it would have 
to be invented. ... There are probably 
more people who feel that in Christ is the 
hope of the world than there ever were be- 
fore in the lifetime of men now living.” 
Lincoln’s explanation of his conviction on 
church-membership probably expresses the 
attitude of most thoughtful people in the 
world to-day: “When any church will in- 
scribe over its altars, as its sole qualification 
for membership, the Saviour’s condensed 
statement of the substance of both law and 
gospel, ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as 
thyself,’ that church will I join with all my 
heart and all my soul.” 

It is not difficult to understand Lincoln’s 
“mental reservations as to the long, com- 
plicated statements of Christian doctrine 
which characterize their articles of belief and 
confessions of faith.” .The most tragic of 
social tragedies is the estrangement of many 
great and good men from the organized ex- 

[ 150 ] 


RECREATION 


pressions of religion by the rivalries, the an- 
tagonisms, the hatreds, the bigotry, and the 
selfishness of those who would despotically 
impose their own dogmatic interpretations 
of religion upon others. Thus have schools 
and governments and art and literature too 
often concluded to avoid the use of religion 
and religious agencies in their programme of 
human service. 

A way for the educational use of religion 
must be found. Among the successful illus- 
trations of such a way is that of Hampton 
and Tuskegee Institutes, the famous Ameri- 
can schools for Negroes, where study, work, 
and religion are integrated into an “educa- 
tion for life.” Nowhere have the inspira- 
tional and social possibilities of education 
been more vividly described than in the 
words of General Armstrong, the founder of 


99 


Hampton Institute: 


In all men, education is conditioned not 
alone on an enlightened head and a changed 
_heart, but very largely on a routine of in- 
dustrious habits, which is to character what | 


titan 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


the foundation is to the pyramid. The sum- 
mit should glow with a divine light, inter- 
fusing and qualifying the whole mass, but it 
should never be forgotten that it is only 
upon a foundation of regular daily activities 
that there can be any fine and permanent 
upbuilding. Morality and industry usually 
go together. 

Subtract hard work from life, and in a few 
months all will have gone to pieces. Labor, 
next to the grace of God in the heart, is the 
greatest promoter of morality, the greatest 
power for civilization. 

Didactic and dogmatic work has little to 
do with the formation of character, which is 
our point. This is done by making the school 
a little world in itself; mingling hard days’ 
work in field or shop with social pleasures, 
making success depend on behavior rather 
than on study work. School life should be 
like real life. 


Principal Frissell, Armstrong’s successor, 
deepened and extended the correlation of 
body, mind, and spirit in education by his 
emphasis on the mental and spiritual value 
of work and study, and by his constant ref- 
erence in prayer and sermon to the realities 

[ 152 ] 


RECREATION 


of the unseen world. Teachers and students 
of Hampton will ever remember the frequent 
quotation of that significant verse: “‘Whom 
having not seen, ye love; in whom, though 
now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice 
with joy unspeakable and full of glory.” 

Principal Booker T. Washington, the fa- 
mous Negro founder of Tuskegee Institute, 
and the pupil of both Armstrong and Frissell, 
became one of the world’s greatest advocates 
of religion in education. “He realized that 
the spirit of Jesus is the salvation of the indi- 
vidual and of society,” said Doctor Wallace 
Buttrick, the well-known chairman of the 
General Education Board, in his memorial 
address on Booker Washington: 


He thought in a high and large way of the 
common things of life. He exalted the homely 
virtues. He saw and taught that the re- 
ligious life found its true expression not in 
the ecstasies of emotion, but in the doing of 
common things right. To him the Kingdom 
of Heaven was not some far-off thing, but his 
-own home, his own office, his own school, his 
circle of friendship. To him the Kingdom of 


[ 153 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


Heaven was love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
gentleness, meekness, goodness, faith. His 
life was conditioned and controlled by the 
spirit of him who said: “If ye love me, keep 
my commandments; he that will be chief 
among you, let him become the servant of 
all.’’ 

Citizenship and Social Service.—Recreation 
for service and citizenship includes all other 
forms of re-creative activities. In addition, 
there is recreation through service and citi- 
zenship. Consciousness of membership in 
the community and the nation develops a 
sense of responsibility and purpose in the in- 
dividual and of unity and strength in society. 
Community recreations to develop such a 
consciousness include pageantry and dra- 
matics, musical festivals and neighborhood 
singing, common playgrounds and pleasure 
centres, national and local celebrations of no- 
table occasions and of the services of dis- 
tinguished citizens. Study of the historical 
development of the nation and the discus- 
sion of social and political issues add to the 
appreciation of the privileges as well as the 


[ 154 ] 


RECREATION 


responsibilities of citizenship. Thus gratitude 
for the heroic services of the past begets a 
desire to carry on the advantages and op- 
portunities to future generations. 

Fundamentals in Community Recreation.— 
Under the title, “Fundamentals in Com- 
munity Recreation,” the “Playground and 
Recreation Association of America” has pub- 
lished a series of twenty-one recommenda- 
tions, based on nineteen years of experience 
during which the number of cities with or- 
ganized recreations have increased from 41 
to 711. These “Fundamentals” have been 
signed by 4,500 leaders in American life. 
The list of signers includes 142 college presi- 
dents, 95 public-school superintendents, 42 
labor-leaders, and numerous manufacturers, 
governors, senators, mayors, authors, women 
leaders, and others. Persons of all occupa- 
tions, divers political affiliations, and of all 
the principal religious faiths gave their ap- 
proval to the statement. 

1. That in nearly every community with 
a population of 8,000 or more there is need 

ies] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


of a man or a woman who shall give full 
time to thinking, planning, and working for 
the best possible use of the leisure hours of men, 
women, and children. 

2. That community leisure time pro- 
grammes should continue throughout the 
entire twelve months of the year. 

3. That it is the responsibility of the en- 
tire community to maintain recreation op- 
portunity for all the citizens and that there 
ought, therefore, to be, as early as possible, 
support of the recreation programme through 
public taxation under some department of the 
local government. 

4. That there should be in every State a 
home-rule bill which will permit the people 
of any city or town to make provision under 
local government for the administration of 
their community recreation. 

5. That there is need in every community, 
even though the municipal recreation ad- 
ministrative body be most effective, for 
private organization of citizens in their 
neighborhoods to make the fullest use of the 
facilities provided, to make sure that what 
is being done is meeting the deeper needs of 
the people of the neighborhood. 

6. That the emphasis ought to be not only 
on maintaining certain activities on play- 
grounds and in recreation centres but also 


[ 156 ] 


RECREATION 


and definitely on the training of the entire 
people in leisure-time activities, so that within 
the home, in the church, and throughout all 
natural, human relationships there shall be 
the best opportunity for wholesome good 
times. 

7. That the purpose in training children 
and young people in the right use of leisure 
ought not to be merely to fill up the idle hours 
but also to create an aeline, energetic, happy 
citizenship. 

8. That even though the beginning of a 
city or town recreation programme be chil- 
dren’s playgrounds, other features ought to 
be added progressively from year to year 
until music, dramatic activities and discus- 
sion of public questions, training for more in- 
tellectual uses of spare time, and other valua- 
ble activities have been included, so that all 
ages and all kinds of people may find vital 
interest. 

9. That every boy and girl in America 
ought to be trained to know well a certain 
limited number of games for use outdoors and 
indoors, so that there will never be occasion 
for any boy or girl to say that he cannot 
think of anything to do. 

10. That most boys and girls should be 
taught a few simple songs, so that, if they 
wish, they may sing as they work or play. 


[ 157 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


11. That all employed boys and girls 
should have opportunity in their free hours 
to enjoy companionship and wholesome social 
life. 

12. That through the community recrea- 
tion programme every boy and girl should 
come to appreciate the beautiful in life. 

13. That adults, through music, drama, 
games, athletics, social activities, community 
and special day celebrations, should find in 
their common interests the opportunity for 
a common community service. 

14. That every new school built ought to 
have a certain minimum amount of space 
around it provided for the play of the chil- 
dren. 

15. That nearly every new school-building 
ought to have an audilorium preferably on 
the ground floor, and should be so constructed 
that it is suited for community uses. 

16. That if a suitable meeting-place for 
community groups is not available in the 
schools or elsewhere, a community building 
should be provided through community ef- 
fort. 

17. That each child, under ten years of age, 
living in a city or town should be given an 
opportunity to play upon a public play- 
ground without going more than one quar- 
ter-mile from home. 


[ 158 ] 


RECREATION 


18. That every community should provide 
space in sufficient area for the boys of the 
community to play baseball and football. 

19. That every community should pro- 
vide opportunity for the boys and girls to 
swim in summer and, as far as possible, to 
skate and coast in winter. 

20. That every boy and every girl ought 
to have opportunity, either on his own home 
grounds or on land provided by the munici- 
pality, to have a small garden where he may 
watch the growth of plants springing up 
from seeds which he has planted. 

21. That in new real-estate developments, 
not less than one-tenth of the space should be 
set aside to be used for play, just as part 
of the land is set aside for streets. 

It is the privilege of community-minded 
men and women everywhere to work to re- 
store and preserve for all the people of Amer- 
ica, and especially for children, their right 
to play and happiness. 


SURVEY OF RECREATION 


However thorough may be the knowledge 
of recreation activities throughout the nation, 
appreciation for educational purposes re- 
quires a survey of facilities and types in the 

[ 159 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


school community. The inquiry should seek 
to discover, first, the agencies of recreation 
and, second, the types of recreation offered 
by each agency. The following questions 
suggest the form and arrangement that will 
probably be practicable in most neighbor- 
hoods. 

Homes and Recreation.—Does the construc- 
tion of the houses encourage or discourage 
the necessary family recreations? Do the 
houses contain adequate room for sleeping, 
eating, bathing, and family association? Are 
there provisions and space for outdoor play, 
flower and vegetable gardens, and manual 
interests? What are the household facilities 
for indoor games, reading, study, music, and 
art? What are the family customs as re- 
gards amusements, reading, study, and re- 
ligious services ? 

Schools and Recreation.—Inquiries as_ to 
the schools may be based upon the methods 
described in the last section of this chapter. 
Reference to that section shows that there are 
four requisites to an adequate plan of recrea- 

[ 160 ] 


RECREATION 


tion, namely: (1) a staff of teachers thor- 
oughly aware of the comprehensive meaning 
of recreation; (2) physical equipment and a 
suitable programme of work, study, and play; 
(3) special courses of instruction on the sub- 
ject; and (4) the direction of school subjects 
and activities so that they may make all 
possible contributions to recreation. Typical 
forms of questions to ascertain some of the 
above facts are: Do the teachers realize that 
the school programme should be re-creative as 
regards the physique, the mind, the character, 
the powers of appreciating the beautiful and 
the good in nature and neighbors, and the 
spirit of service? Are play and amusements 
regarded as merely incidental to education or 
as a regular part of the school programme? 
Is the school plant constructed with adequate 
regard for recreative needs? 

Churches and Recreation.—What recreative 
influences do the churches exert for the physi- 
cal well-being of the individual and the com- 
munity? The mental development? The 
- cultivation of character) The spiritual appre- 
[ 161 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


ciation of industry, art, and nature? In what 
way are religious sanctions and faith recrea- 
tive? Do the churches maintain institutions 
for recreation Do the sermons reflect an in- 
terest in recreations for the daily needs of the 
people? What proportion of the population 
are members of the churches? How many 
are children ? 

Public Recreations.—What recreation facili- 
ties in addition to the schools does the govern- 
ment supply» Compare the expenditures of 
the local government, municipal or county, 
on police or jails or asylums with the amounts 
expended on playgrounds, recreation centres, 
libraries, art museums, and parks. How 
many of the twenty-one “Fundamentals of 
Recreation”’ are realized in the neighborhood ? 

Semi-Public or Philanthropic Organizations. 
—How many non-governmental organizations 
are maintaining recreation activities) Esti- 
mate the number of men, women, and chil- 
dren that profit by each of these institutions. 
Differentiate the recreations of each, show- 
ing the extent to which they are for the 

[ 162 ] 


RECREATION 


physique, the mind, the character, apprecia- 
tions, or for civic and social service. Estimate 
the financial costs for each. 

Commercial Amusements.—Name the vari- 
ous commercial organizations for the amuse- 
ment of the people. Estimate the attendance, 
distinguishing the number of men, women, 
and children. Ascertain the approximate 
amount expended for each form. Show the 
help or the harm of each activity to the physi- 
cal, mental, or moral welfare of the com- 
munity. 

Adaptations of Recreations.—Throughout 
the inquiry, it is important to note how well 
the recreations are adapted to the conditions 
of the community. Urban peoples are in spe- 
cial need of rural or open-country influences. 
Those in sedentary occupations require physi- 
cal exercise and vigorous contacts with air, 
water, and earth. Monotony of work must 
be corrected by opportunities for variations. 
Observe the forms of monotony or specializa- 
tions of the prevailing occupations and pro- 
fessions, and then ascertain what opportuni- 

[ 163 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


ties there are for the workers to counteract 
slavish habits, narrowing interests, and lim- 
ited view of life. It is evident that these 
tests should always consider the needs of 
both individual and community as regards 
the physique, the mind, the character, and 
the appreciations of the good, the beautiful, 
and the spiritual inspirations of great ideals 
and religious faith. 


EDUCATION AND RECREATION 


The analysis and survey of recreation in 
the foregoing paragraphs point emphatically 
to the conclusion that recreation should be the 
concern of every phase of education. Indeed, 
every social institution appears to share the 
responsibility for the all-round development 
of the individual and the community. To 
regard recreation as an incident of education, 
religion, or industry, is to fail to recognize its 
fundamental value to life. 

It is believed that the comprehensive con- 
ception of recreation, herein presented, will 
largely solve the perplexing problems of 

[ 164 ] 


RECREATION 


character-training in all kinds of schools. 
According to this conception, the cultivation 
of character and training for social service 
become the joint interest of all teachers, of 
all departments, and of all activities. Ath- 
letics, amusements, study, research, and the 
social life of the institution can all contribute 
to the development of personality and the 
spirit of service. The process must, of course, 
avoid artificial extensions of influence by any 
department or society. The contribution of 
each activity, of each subject, and of each 
teacher must be natural and real. Nor are the 
recreational influences to be left to the chance 
interest of any person who happens to think 
of the larger meanings of his department. 
To avoid such uncertainty it will probably be 
necessary to make some provision for wise 
direction and stimulation of recreations in this 
comprehensive sense. 

Reference has already been made to the 
four requisites of an effective plan for the ap- 
plication of the consciousness of community 
recreation in education. The administrative 


[ 165 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


officers of the school system, thoroughly aware 
of the broad significance of the ‘fourth sim- 
ple or essential,’’ and genuinely informed as 
to the results of the community survey, are 
prepared to organize the educational ac- 
tivities necessary to supply the community 
needs. 

1. The school staff should be conscious of 
their share in the responsibility for the full de- 
velopment of the personality of their pupils. 
They should understand the relation of their 
work to the general field, not only within the 
school but also in the community, and, in- 
deed, in society at large. Their devotion to 
their special subject should not exclude their 
interest in the physical, mental, and moral 
growth of the students. Through their study 
of the wide scope of recreation, and through 
their acquaintance with the facts compiled 
by the survey, they should be prepared to 
realize in the school the vital implications of 
education for life. 

2. The school plant and the school organ- 
ization should be planned with due regard for 

[ 166 ] 


RECREATION 


the recreational needs. Playground, gym- 
nasium, dormitory, dining-room, social room, 
club, classroom, laboratory, library, field, 
and shop should all be constructed and man- 
aged in accordance with the recreative re- 
quirements of health, comfort, and beauty 
of surroundings, the mental and moral de- 
mands of the students. The administrative 
arrangements and the time programme should 
also be based on these requirements. 

3. The special courses of instruction, the 
social and religious organizations, and the 
activities designed for recreation should be 
encouraged so long as they do not eliminate 
or overshadow the recreative influence and 
responsibility of other elements of educa- 
tion. 

4. The directing and coloring of the whole 
school programme for recreational purpose 
should be the aim of all educators. With full 
appreciation of the special institutions and 
courses provided to maintain and stimulate 
recreations, sound policy requires every grade 
of education, from the elementary period to 

[ 167 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


the specialized researches of the university, 
to be so conducted as to contribute to the 
development of personality. The truth and 
fundamental importance of this conviction 
are evidenced by the number and variety of 
the facts that have compelled its repeated 
statement in preceding paragraphs. The fol- 
lowing comments and suggestions are merely 
illustrative of some of the adaptations that 
may be made. The resourceful teacher will 
find numerous adaptations on the basis of 
survey facts and general knowledge. 
Elementary Schools—The three R’s, the 
central subjects of most schools, have numer- 
ous possibilities for recreation. The learning 
process can often be made a diverting and 
joyous action. Traits of mind and character 
can be re-created from undesirable and harm- 
ful habits to sound and helpful. modes of 
thinking and acting. Reckless impulsiveness 
may be changed into thoughtful and delib- 
erate attitudes. Regularity, promptness, 
punctuality, thrift, perseverance, obedience, 
respect, generosity, truthfulness, loyalty, a 
spirit of service, and many other qualities may 
[ 168 ] 


RECREATION 


be made to replace the opposite traits injuri- 
ous to individual and community. 

Arithmetic may assist in the measuring of 
playgrounds; computing the proportions of 
time and money used in various pleasures 
that are harmful or helpful; and in the evalu- 
ation of recreative processes of sleep, food, 
and work. Reading opens wide many avenues 
to pleasure, rest, and inspirations for young 
and old. Nature-study introduces the youth 
to the beauty and benefits of the physical 
resources. Hand-and-eye training, whether in 
play, in gardens, in workshop, or in sewing 
and cooking refresh and renew the body and 
mind. The other senses—hearing, feeling, and 
smelling—could almost equally well be in- 
cluded in this training. 

The beginnings of the appreciation of the 
fine arts may be at the threshold of the ele- 
mentary school, continuing on through the 
whole of the educational system and through 
life. From simple drawings, colorings, con- 
structions of paper or wood or other conve- 
nient materials, the classes may proceed to 
the designing, copying, or building of toy and 

[ 169 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


miniature models of furniture, houses, boats, 
streets, or any other product of mechanics 
and art. The rural districts would furnish 
objects worthy of imitation, such as the mak- 
ing of a highway and the laying out of a farm, 
with its machinery and barns and animals. 
Modern efforts to beautify and humanize 
both city and country have much of recrea- 
tive interest to elementary pupils. 

The potentialities of music in the lower 
grades, as indeed in the higher ranges of edu- 
cation, are only beginning to be realized. 
There are the making of simple musical in- 
struments, modelling those of primitive peo- 
ple as well as those of more recent times; the 
learning of folk-songs and folk-dances that 
often accompany them; the observation and 
study of the influence of music in marching, 
dancing, and in the awakening of patriotism, 
religious feeling, and group loyalties. Such 
observations can, of course, only be initiated 
in the elementary grades; they require the 
maturity of secondary, college, and even of 
university study and research. 

[ 170 ] 


RECREATION 


Elementary history, geography, and selec- 
tions from literature have great possibilities 
for the proper direction of mind and char- 
acter. Through these three recognized com- 
pilations of social data, human experience 
may be revealed to the youth for guidance 
and inspiration. Unfortunately the task has 
in the past been made difficult by the in- 
ability of text-book writers to find records of 
facts relating to simple elements that con- 
stitute the major and fundamental interests 
of the masses. History, literature, and ge- 
ography have too largely been filled by the 
deeds of the “mighty and the aristocratic,” 
to the neglect of the community “simples”’ 
that have made and marred both the lowly 
and the mighty. Even though the mental 
capacity of the youth of elementary-school 
age is quite limited, it is important to adapt 
the lessons of history, geography, and litera- 
ture so that the masses of the school-children 
may profit so far as possible by the experi- 
ences and inspirations of the past. 

In this connection reference must be made 


[171 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


to the use of the Bible in the elementary 
grades. On the basis of its remarkable influ- 
ence throughout the world, educators are 
bound to give serious consideration to the 
methods of using this book, not only for its 
well-known literary merits but much more 
for its presentation of great vital truths which 
underlie character development, social morals, 
and morale. With the abundance of intel- 
lectual ability available in modern society, 
it seems most lamentable that either the 
bigotry and narrowness of ignorance, or the 
conceit and indifference of “much learning” 
should be permitted to discourage or hinder 
the use of the Bible or the essentials of re- 
ligion as advocated by Lincoln in a statement 
already quoted. Such a procedure can be 
likened only to the futility and foolhardiness 
of a capable plainsman who insists on climb- 
ing the Alpine heights without the Swiss 
guides and the generations of experience 
which they personify. Quite apart from the 
validity and value of religious dogma, the 
churches incorporate centuries of experience 
[ 172 ] 


RECREATION 


in the development of a technic of appeal and 
influence which educators cannot afford to 
overlook without careful and extended re- 
search. 

Last, but by no means least, of the ele- 
mentary-school recreational activities are 
those usually associated with play and vaca- 
tion, with a minimum of direction and a 
maximum of pupil initiative. Here is an 
abundance of opportunities for educational 
authorities to provide ways and means for 
the youth to express their interests and their 
longings; to discover the world as it is; and 
to realize their individual and social poten- 
tialities. In gymnasium, playground, park, 
and camp, they may play the old and the new 
games and invent still others. In the pupil 
organizations they may experience the priv- 
ileges and responsibilities of association on a 
common level, and may learn the joys and 
disappointments, the authorities and obedi- 
ences, the generosities and selfishnesses, the 
superiorities and inferiorities—all inevitable 
-and seemingly natural in such self-determin- 
[173 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


ing associations. For the vacation the school 
may wisely “‘insinuate’’ a variety of pupil 
recreations of surprising value. In the coun- 
try there are the intimate contacts with na- 
ture: the growing of vegetables, the care of 
chickens and rabbits, the harvesting of crops, 
and the participation in the numerous forms 
of farm life. There are the chores and respon- 
sibilities of the summer home and camp, the 
preparation of food, the sleeping quarters, the 
sanitary arrangements, the beautification of 
interior and exterior, and the care for the 
younger children. There are the discoveries 
and collections of soils, stones, shells; seeds, 
grasses, plants; beetles, butterflies, moths; 
fish, birds, and the wild animals. There are 
the games of the open country, the swimming- 
hole or the dashing surf, and the hikes 
through the woods and the climbs of hills and 
mountains. And there are the intimate life 
of the family, the free association with friends, 
and the letters to friends near and far. What 
a wealth of recreational experience for the 
coming years of school and community life! 
[ 174 ] 


RECREATION 
Secondary Schools.—Many, if not all, of the 


recreations begun in the elementary grades 
will carry over naturally and logically into 
those of the secondary schools. The maturer 
ages of the pupils will, of course, require 
adaptations and extensions, and will make 
possible the enrichment and deepening of 
discussions, observations, and experiences. 
The results of the community survey may be 
more in evidence to the pupils. The upper 
grades will be prepared to test some survey 
facts by their own observations, and to con- 
sider them in the light of their science and 
history and literature. 

Mathematics may deal with the more com- 
plicated computations and comparisons of 
expenditures for recreations such as_ the- 
atres, automobiles, travel, libraries, schools, 
churches, and public play centres. The cal- 
culations may include percentages and pro- 
portions relating to luxuries and necessities 
of housing, clothing, and food; playgrounds 
and prisons; education and military. 

Literature and foreign languages will in- 

196} 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


troduce pupils to an extensive field of recrea- 
tional experiences, including the informa- 
tional and inspirational presentations of the 
great classics in all the languages learned. 
History and social studies will enlarge the in- 
terests awakened in the elementary grades, 
both as regards types of recreations and the 
diversity of nations and peoples studied. The 
sciences of the secondary school may work 
wonders and, at any rate, many surprises that 
will be full of pleasure and rich in many cor- 
rectional values to body, mind, and character. 
Household arts, industrial arts, and the fine 
arts, as they may be taught to the pupils of 
the junior and senior high schools, are the 
opportunities to develop many of the appre- 
ciations of mechanical inventions, industrial 
achievements, and the inspirations of the 
masters in music, painting, architecture, and 
sculpture. Therein are probably the best 
realizations of “vocational or life guidance.”’ 

The influence of religion, the potentiali- 
ties of the vacation, the responsibilities and 
self-determination of student activities, as 

[ 176 ] 


RECREATION 


they have been presented for the elementary 
schools, are obviously more applicable with 
the older boys and girls of the secondary 
schools. To make sure that secondary educa- 
tion makes its full contribution to recreation, 
it is suggested that the policy-makers and 
teachers test the total influences of the 
school by the objectives described in earlier 
paragraphs.* 

College Education—Culture, in the best 
sense of that much misused word, is avow- 
edly the primary and basic purpose of the 
“liberal college” in America. In the com- 
prehensive meaning of re-creation, as used in 
this chapter, culture and recreation are prac- 
tically the same. The recognition of this 
relationship assigns to the college a funda- 
mental responsibility for the all-round devel- 
opment of personality, and for the direction 
of social forces toward the utopia of com- 
munity health, appreciation of physical and 
human environment, wholesome and happy 
home life, and recreations that unite daily 


* See page 144. 
hit aie gad 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


drudgery and the inspirations of the beau- 
tiful and the good. The great objective of 
college education thus described is admit- 
tedly at present too largely only a utopia 
of hope and desire, but the means of work- 
ing toward that end need not be utopian. 

The objectives of recreation, already pre- 
sented, are definite and attainable through 
the processes of education and, especially, 
through those of the liberal college. Nor will 
radical changes be required in the content 
of the college programme. The vital changes 
will be chiefly those of attitude and purpose 
in teaching and learning. As, in the elemen- 
tary and secondary grades, the whole school 
must be colored with the re-creational pur- 
pose, so with even more serious intent must 
the college curriculum and the college life be 
squared and rounded to the needs of the 
“eternal individual”’ and the eternal society 
and their inextricable relationships. 

If mathematics, physical and social sci- 
ences, history, literature, art, and the social 
life of the lower schools can have recreative 

[178 ] 


RECREATION 


meanings and influences, much more can they 
contribute to the re-creation of the more ma- 
ture students of the liberal college. The re- 
searches of mathematics and physical sci- 
ences can measure the extent of fatigue, 
whether of muscle or brain. They can help 
to determine the balance of food, play, free- 
dom, rest, and diversity required. They may 
reveal the universe of matter and extend the 
human control of time and space for the com- 
fort, joy, and peace of society. Literature and 
art dramatize both the common and the un- 
common, and give new meanings to life. 
History and the social sciences, directly 
concerned with human affairs, should be 
adapted to the full for the balanced life of 
the individual and the community. College 
researches of early historical records can help 
to discover the common deeds of the com- 
mon day, not only for the guidance of col- 
lege students but also for the use of teachers 
and pupils in the lower schools. The insis- 
tent need for such historical material has 
already been noted. Under the influence of 
[ 179 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


a living consciousness of community needs 
the selection and interpretation of historical 
records may be much more vital to humanity. 
At present history lamentably neglects the 
contributions of those who have established 
sanitation, who have increased the produc- 
tivity of the land, who have taught industry, 
who have established the sacredness of the 
home, who have encouraged wholesome 
recreations, and even of those who have de- 
veloped co-operation and made the sterling 
qualities of character the essentials of peace 
end social progress. Great nations have been 
described too largely as the products of 
strife, wars, rebellions, and revolutions. While 
these cruel and wasteful processes have un- 
doubtedly had a tragically deep influence, 
they should not be permitted to overshadow 
the patience, persistence, the toil, the in- 
genuity, the initiative, the skill, the relia- 
bility, the mentality, the moral character, 
the organization, and the willingness and the 
ability to undertake and successfully to carry 
responsibility—all of which have entered 
[ 180 ] 


RECREATION 


vitally into the making of great and powerful 
peoples and nations. Such an appreciation 
of the past is the surest guarantee of wise 
action and sound attitudes in the future. 
The social sciences, including sociology, 
economics, and political science, are extending 
their researches into the social relationships 
of mankind in a manner that promises in 
time to reveal the essential principles of so- 
cialization with somewhat of the accuracy 
that characterizes the remarkable findings of 
psychology. Some day they may even equal 
the physical sciences and their almost mirac- 
ulous revelations. The important condition 
to success in social research is the spirit of 
inquiry, the open mind, and the inductive 
approach to the facts of neighborhood and 
society. As Professor Giddings has warned: 
“Social studies must be based upon data ac- 
curately observed, carefully selected, and 
scientifically interpreted so that attitudes, 
convictions, and policies may be formulated 
with full regard for actual conditions. This 
is the work of a sociologist trained to weigh 
[ 181 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


statistical evidence rather than the imagina- 
tions of a sociologizer with altruistic dreams 
and wishful thinking, or the mystical ab- 
stractions of a sociologian applying the pre- 
conceptions of his philosophic deductions.”’ 
Consciousness of community based upon 
the inductive surveys of those who will fol- 
low the sociological method, however ele- 
mentary, will bring order out of the present 
uncertainty and chaos as to the purpose of 
education, and especially as to the objectives 
of recreation. Thus will the students learn 
the recreational value of work well done, 
whether literary, laboratory, household, 
handicraft, or agriculture. Thus will they 
realize the futility of the hectic haste of civi- 
lized society, and even of college provisions 
for specialized forms of amusement and rec- 
reation that are often disappointingly artifi- 
cial. Thus will they find that the real re-crea- 
tive influences may be in the regular processes 
of education. With such a consciousness of 
values, the confusing array of college sub- 
jects, activities, departments, and organiza- 
[ 182 ] 


RECREATION 


tions will take their proper place in the cul- 
tivation of character, the development of 
personality, and the encouragement of a 
spirit of social service. 

Athletics will be accorded every oppor- 
tunity, but will cease to be a dominant and 
controlling interest overshadowing all others. 
Scholarly attainments will be recognized as a 
main function. Experimentation in labora- 
tory, field, shop, and household problems will 
all be estimated as vitally educational. Music 
and art will not be merely decorative and in- 
cidental. Student societies and student par- 
ticipation will neither be merely the toler- 
ated privileges patronizingly granted by age, 
experience, and authority to youth, nor will 
they be regarded as the one sure source of 
wisdom, with the full right to disregard, to 
deny, and to dominate age, experience, and 
the authority essential to the whole process 
of education. 

The age-long and universal influence of re- 
ligion will not be entirely relegated to the 
care of philanthropic organizations invited 

[ 183 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


or tolerated from the outside; nor exclusively 
to denominational chapels distributed on or 
about the college grounds like competitive 
restaurants enticing the students to partake 
without money and without price, emblems 
of the very rivalries that have hindered re- 
ligion in every age; not even in the college 
hostels and dormitories under the separate 
supervision of religious monitors or visiting 
chaplains will diverse religions be segregated 
to emphasize the cleavages already too deep 
and divisive. Religion will be primarily 
taught and experienced as the natural color- 
ing of all school work. Special provisions for 
religious instruction are, of course, necessary, 
but they should not be permitted to exclude 
or overshadow the potentialities of all edu- 
cation for religious development. 

University and Recreation.—The speciali- 
zation of university education for the several 
professions creates an emphatic need for the 
broadening influence of recreation. One of 
the great dangers of modern society is the 
extreme differentiation of occupations and 

[ 184 ] 


RECREATION 


interests. The university is the beginning of 
this limitation to professional concentration. 
It is, therefore, extremely important that 
avocational interests shall be encouraged for 
the university students. There is assurance, 
however, in the conviction that even the 
specialized subjects and trainings for each 
profession may have recreational values in 
the same degree as the more general instruc- 
tion of the college. The important considera- 
tion is that this shall be remembered and 
realized as against the inevitable tendency 
to forget all else and centre on the life-work. 
It is also true that the life-work, however 
separate and different in the type of training, 
has inextricable relations to the life-work of 
others and to society as a whole. The physi- 
cian, the lawyer, and the engineer are, first 
of all, personalities with real and general re- 
sponsibilities to the community, and they 
are, secondly, the practitioners of their re- 
spective professions. These general relation- 
ships should not be left exclusively to early 
training, nor even to the preparations of 
[ 185 ] 


FOUR ESSENTIALS OF EDUCATION 


secondary and college education. It has been 
said that only they are masters of their oc- 
cupations and professions to whom their 
work has the interest and joy of play. This 
is an attitude toward personal responsibili- 
ties that is worthy of diligent cultivation, 
but it involves a corresponding diligence to 
achieve the full round of recreational objec- 
tives essential to manhood, womanhood, and 
community life. 


[ 186 ] 


INDEX 


Accretion Method, 3 

Adaptation: Necessity produces, 16; rural, 17 

Adaptation and Coloring of Education: Health, 59-60; en- 
vironment, 87; home life, 115-116; re-creation, 167-168 

Aims: Defined by educators, 4-10; comparison of, 9-10 

American Child Health Association, 6 

Antioch College, 18 

Armstrong, Samuel Chapman, Founder of Hampton Institute, 
151-152 

Berry School: In Georgia, 18 

Bible, 172 

Buttrick, Dr. Wallace, 153-154 

Churches, 135-136, 161-162 

Civilized Society, Essentials of, 21-22 

Colleges: Health, 63-65; rural and urban environment, 91-93; 
home life, 119-120; re-creation, 177-184 

Community: Defined, 69-74 

Consciousness of Community, 13-18 

Dartmouth College. See Richardson 

Dawson, Lord, Physician to the King of England, 54-55 

Education: and community, 1-26; and community health, 
56-65; and environment, 82-95; and the household, 113- 
121; and re-creation, 164-186 

Elementary Schools: Health, 60-61; rural and urban environ- 
ment, 87-89; home life, 117-118; re-creation, 168-174 

Environment: Defined, 69-74 

Essentials of Education. See Simples 

Four Essentials of Education: Synthesis of, 23-24; social or- 
ganizations, 24-25; social ideals, 25-27 

Frissell, Hollis B., Principal of Hampton Institute, 152-153 

General Education Board, 17, 153 

Giddings, Professor Franklin H., Preface 

Health and Sanitation, 28-38, 48-51 

Jeanes Fund, 18 

Koos, Leonard V., 9 


Lee, Joseph, 125-126 
Lincoln, Abraham, 150 


[ 187 ] 


INDEX 


Mental and Character Development: Health basis, 29, 30, 
51-55; development of individuality and social exchange, 
97-99; Chapter V, Re-creation, especially 145-154 and 164— 
186 

Milbank Memorial Fund, 31 


Neighborhood: Defined, 69-74 
New York Times, 4 


Playground and Re-creation Association of America, 136-138, 
155 

Power, Eileen, Professor, University of London, 92 

Primitive Society, Essentials of, 19-21 

Religion, 148-154, 183-184 

Richardson, Professor Leon B., Dartmouth College, 63-64, 
128-129 

Rural Population. See Urban and Rural Population. 

Rural Resources, 77—78 


Sadler, Sir Michael, Introduction 

School Plant: Health, 57-58; environment, 85-86; home life, 
114; re-creation, 166-167 

Secondary Schools: Health, 62-63; rural and urban environ- 
ment, 90-91; home life, 118-119; re-creation, 175-177 

Shaw, Bernard, 149-150 

Simples of Education, 19, 20-21, 21-22 

Social Ideals, 25-27 

Social Organizations, 24-25 

Special Courses: Health, 58-59; environment, 86-87; home 
life, 114-115; re-creation, 167 

Survey: Of community health, 38-54; of resources and pop- 
ulation, 74-82; of homes and households, 108-112; of re- 
creation, 159-164 

Syracuse Demonstration, 31-34 

Teaching Staff: Health, 56-57; environment, 85; home life, 
113; re-creation, 166 

Thompson, Francis, 149 

Unifying Principle, 11 

Universities: Home life, 120-121; re-creation, 184-186; see 
health and colleges, 63-65; see rural and urban environment 
in relation to colleges, 117-120 

Urban and Rural Population, 81-82 

Urban Resources and Activities, 78-81 

Vital Statistics, 42-48 


Washington, Principal Booker T., 153-154 


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